Going Global

In the tradition of Banana Republic and J. Peterman, the fledgling direct marketing business started by placing small space ads in The New Yorker and The Wall Street Journal. From these ads it built a tiny list and converted inquiries with a small black and white brochure. What began as a wholesale business mushroomed into a small mail-order business virtually overnight when a writer from The New York Times met with Annie at an apparel show in New York in 1979. The Peruvian Connection story hit the front page of the Style section and generated more than 5,000 catalog requests. Because the business was not yet automated each request received a personal note from the Hurlbuts along with a catalog. The conversion of these early catalog requests was phenomenal, says Annie Hurlbut. Peruvian Connection was a bona fide mail-order business.