12 Founders of Famous Brands Less Talked About

9Baskin Robbins – Burton Baskin and Irvine Robbins

In 1945 brother-in-laws Burton Baskin and Irvine Robbins opened their ice cream parlors namely Burton’s and Snowbird in California. Irv spent most of his time innovating unusual ice cream flavors and created 31 flavors in three years that gained international fame. In 1948, the five snowbird and three Burton’s shops combined into single enterprise which was renamed as Baskin-Robbins, deciding the order of their names with a coin toss in 1953. At a factory in Burbank they made hundreds of new ice creams a year but only 8 to 9 would make it to the market. Baskin Robbins claims to have created more than 1000 flavors of ice creams. When it became difficult for both to manage number of shops they started selling them to managers which gave birth to their franchise business model. Today it has more than 5,800 franchises worldwide. 

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10Lascoste – Rene Lacoste and Andre Gillier

Lacoste is a French clothing brand not founded by some fashion designer but by tennis player Rene Lacoste and Andre Gillier, the owner of the largest knitwear manufacturing firm in 1933. In 1920’s people played tennis in long sleeved shirts but Rene Lacoste sewed a short sleeved shirt for himself. He was known as ‘alligator’ because he always destroyed his competitors if they made a mistake. This is how they began to produce tennis shirts Lacoste, designed with a crocodile logo embroidered on the chest. It was the first example of a brand name appearing on the outside of clothing. Its popularity increased due to contracts between Lacoste and young tennis players to wear it. 

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11Pandora – Winnie Enevoldsen and Per Enevoldsen

Pandora gained global attention with its popular charm bracelet line. The charm bracelet allows women to create a unique accessory from hundreds of charms to choose from to express themselves and honor special moments in their lives. Pandora was founded by Danish goldsmith Per Enevoldsen and his wife Winnie, when they opened a small jewelry shop in 1982. Their shop featured many items imported from Thailand. In 1987 Pandora began designing its own pieces. Today Pandora jewelry is sold in more than 100 countries across six continents. 

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12Zara – Amancio Ortega

Last year the founder of Zara, Spanish fashion tycoon, Amancio Ortega, knocked out Bill Gates briefly to become the richest person in the world. Ortega never graduated from high school. He worked as a boy for a tailor and set out on his own in his 20’s selling lingerie and bathrobes with his first wife Rosalia Mera in their first Zara in 1975. The company decided to follow the concept of instant fashion where new and trendy clothes appeared in stores every 2 weeks. Ortega worked 25 years without a vacation, visits the same coffee shop each day and eats his lunch at company’s cafeteria.

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