CALIFORNIA : Esprit CEO to Resign; Apparel Retailer Expanded Under His Watch

Esprit de Corp Chief Executive Jay Margolis is resigning from the closely held retailer of young women’s and children’s apparel, the company said Thursday.

San Francisco-based Esprit said Margolis will leave Jan. 1 and that it hadn’t named a successor. The company operates 350 retail stores worldwide and designs and makes its own line of clothing, footwear and other products sold in 44 countries.

Margolis joined Esprit in 1996 and helped the company expand its retail presence, restart a catalog and open a site on the Internet. Before joining the company, Margolis was president and vice chairman of Tommy Hilfiger USA Inc.

At its peak in 1989, Esprit had 80 stores and discount outlets in the U.S. Now it has only 20 stores nationwide.

Esprit has recently begun targeting slightly older customers--women ages 19 to 30 as opposed to preteens and teens--by offering higher quality and slightly more expensive clothes.

Esprit’s new market niche is “more contemporary than the Gap but less expensive than Banana Republic,” Margolis said.

Since the initiative, Esprit has stabilized. Many attribute the success to Margolis’ advertising and catalog design vision.