April 1, 2002
John Peterman ran some ads for a cowboy duster and built the $70 million J. Peterman catalog business. Mel and Patricia Zeigler discovered a cache of surplus French army shirts, ran small ads and parlayed them into Banana Republic. Ditto Lillian Vernon with personalized women’s belts and handbags. For Larry Brown, it was … uh … a toe-straightener for six-toed feet. Really. Brown, 55, started out as a rookie in the Great Old Days of mail order, and has a repertoire of wild and colorful stories to prove it. He says he never chose the mail order business. The mail order business
