The Daily Mall Reader: Sears Style

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Sears' Sizzling New Vitality
Once frumpy but now fashionable, the largest retailer turns style into big profits

TIME Magazine - Monday, Aug. 20, 1984

(Excerpt) Forget Sears, Roebuck. Nowadays Sears, Tiegs might be more appropriate. In 12 million American homes, the first image Sears customers are seeing as they flip through the new fall-winter catalog is the cover picture of Model Cheryl Tiegs, wearing a cardigan sweater and an autumn plaid skirt, her smiling face and long blond tresses beckoning potential buyers into the magic world of America's largest retailer. Sears has taken a fancy to Tiegs, embracing her in its catalog and TV commercials and identifying itself with her wholesome all-American looks. The chemistry has been sizzling. Just two years short of its 100th birthday, the once staid and conservative Sears is showing the friskiness of a teen-ager who has won a date with Tiegs. In fact, some people would say that Sears has become downright sassy.

That new image is a result of the vitality that is reinvigorating one of America's most famous companies after a period of drift and uncertainty. Last month Sears changed its logo to something resembling slanted racing stripes, only the second redesign in its history and the first in 21 years.

Read the full article here.