Casual Corner

Casual Corner

Defunct	2005
Headquarters	West Hartford, Connecticut
Number of locations	500+ at peak
Area served	U.S.
Products	Clothing

Casual Corner was an American retail clothing chain founded in 1950. It operated stores under the names Casual Corner, Petite Sophisticate and August Max Woman brands among others. Casual Corner operated more than 525 stores at its peak.

History

Charles E. Carples and Stanley W. Vogel co-founded Casual Corner in 1950 in West Hartford, Connecticut. It was sold to United States Shoe Corporation in 1970 when the chain included 20 stores. A year later, the chain opened its twenty-fifth store and continued to grow rapidly after that.

The chain's target demographic was originally sports-themed wear for women, but by the 1990s it had been redesigned to target working-class women. Casual Corner became the foundation of a larger holding company entitled Women's Specialty Retailing Group, which in addition to Casual Corner owned and operated several other brands including August Max, Sophisticated Woman (these two entities were later combined and renamed August Max Woman), Petite Sophisticate, Ups & Downs, J. Riggings, Caren Charles and Casual Corner Annex. At its peak, US Specialty Retailing included over 1,300 stores nationwide. In 1995, United States Shoe was sold to the Del Vecchio family which took the Women's Specialty Retailing Group private again, after incorporating LensCrafters into their Luxottica business unit and selling the shoe division to Nine West.

With 525 stores in business, Casual Corner closed its remaining locations in late 2005 after selling them to a liquidator. The stores were closed due to increased competition.