Preface: This was written in collaboration with Gemini. I'm not going to do Chinese translation anymore since it's getting a little confusing to me lol. English only for now.

It’s really hard for me to miss the name Wexner, since I did spend five years living in Columbus, studying psychology and physics between the years of 2011 and 2016. I was studying psychology because I had a hitch that my mom had some sort of mental illness, and so did I. The topic became so interesting to me that it eventually took over physics as a major. I ended up finishing physics as a minor. I tell people it’s because I couldn’t figure out how to do the capstone project, but the truth is, I was just too lazy. If I was so bad at it, picking up quantum mechanics wouldn’t have been intuitive. Yet I was so bad at classical mechanics which was a 2000 level class, yet didn’t struggle too much with quantum, which was a 4000 level class. Lazy or not, smart or not, I couldn’t do anything that I didn’t find interesting. So when I worked briefly at the Wexner Medical Center as a student assistant, I realized medical wasn’t for me, neither was any desk job that’d require me to sit 8 hours a day doing some repetitive task. Luckily, those jobs are replaced by AI now, so I guess it wasn’t going to work out for me anyway.

The OSU Wexner Medical Center, was one of the four hospitals that could perform transgender surgery, and it being in Columbus, was a blue city, even though the rest of Ohio was pretty red, which made Ohio as a whole a swing state. It was a very good hospital that did all sorts of cutting edge stuff. Except looking back now, I’m a little skeptical why Wexner Medical Center was one of the four first hospitals to have transgender surgery. It seemed a bit random back then, but it seems even more suspicious now. Like why transgender? Out of everything? Is this a Silence of the Lamb situation? Are you Baffolo Bill, Wex?

But anyways, the point is this. There wasn’t just one of the best hospitals named after Wexner, there was also the Wexner Center of Art, and all sorts of things. This city was built around the legacy of Les Wexner. When Abercrombie and Fitch had the scandal of being “racist” and “white”, I got recruited to be a “model”, which was just a fancy way to say their store associate that folded clothes and guided customers. I got recruited to be a “model” walking through an oval in front of the Thompson Library, on my way late to class. I said no, but took her business card. Of course, later I found out it’s because they wanted to seem “diverse” and therefore had their recruiters get to campus to recruit non-white, particularly asian college kids. Even though I said no, my now husband, who was still a housemate of mine, did say yes, he used to work for Hollister as a “model” in High School. So imagine my shock when this Epstein thing surfaced and so did his close relationships with Leslie Wexner, not that I knew him, but everyone knew of him. Everyone in Ohio. It feels even more relevant for me to know all the ins and outs of this, among the information I can find, that is.

As many people know, Leslie H. Wexner is an American billionaire businessman and the founder of the retail empire L Brands, which at its peak included iconic brands such as Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, The Limited, and Abercrombie & Fitch. As of February 2026, Wexner is recognized as the richest person in Ohio, with a net worth estimated at approximately $9 billion. He was a brilliant businessman that had great ideas that he made into reality. He is often credited with pioneering the concept of specialty retailing. He had an amazing story of how he became the richest person in Ohio.

Before 1963, Les Wexner worked at his parents' clothing store, Leslie’s. He noticed a recurring problem: his father would stock everything from heavy winter coats to formal dresses, but many of those items sat on the racks for months. Wexner analyzed the store's books and realized that while the expensive coats took up most of the budget and floor space, the lower-priced items—like blouses and pants—were what actually made the profit because they sold quickly. When he suggested to his father that they stop selling coats and focus only on "separates," his father reportedly told him: "You’ll never be a merchant." In 1963, Wexner borrowed $5,000 from his Aunt Ida and opened a small shop in the Kingsdale Shopping Center in Upper Arlington, Ohio. He called it "The Limited" because the inventory was strictly limited to a few types of items (skirts, sweaters, and shirts). He focused on younger women who wanted trendy, affordable "mix-and-match" outfits rather than the structured, expensive suits their mothers wore. On his first day, he did $473 in sales—roughly the same amount his father’s full-service store made in a week. By the end of the first year, The Limited had generated $160,000 in sales.

Wexner’s success wasn't just about what he sold, but how fast he sold it. I guess you could call him the real father of fast fashion. This approach changed the industry in three specific ways. By avoiding slow-moving items like heavy coats, he kept cash flowing. He didn't have to wait for "seasons" to end to see a return. He also proved that a store didn't need to be everything to everyone. By being the "best" at just tops and bottoms, he built a loyal, specific demographic. Because the inventory was simple, the store layout was easy to replicate. This allowed him to open 100 stores by 1976.

The acquisition of Victoria’s Secret is one of the most famous "bargains" in business history. Wexner bought the company in 1982 for just $1 million—a price that looks like a rounding error today considering the brand eventually reached a valuation of over $7 billion. Victoria’s Secret was founded in 1977 by Roy Raymond, a Stanford MBA. Raymond’s "Aha!" The moment was feeling awkward and like a "pervert" while trying to buy lingerie for his wife in a department store. He designed the stores to look like a Victorian boudoir—dark wood, heavy curtains, and silk rugs. It was marketed entirely to men. The idea was to create a safe, comfortable space where a husband could buy sexy lingerie for his wife without feeling embarrassed. By 1982, Raymond had six stores and a successful catalog, but the business was failing. He was reportedly close to bankruptcy because the "lingerie for men" niche wasn't large enough to sustain the overhead.

Wexner discovered the brand while visiting San Francisco. He walked into a store and was immediately struck by the "mood" of the brand, but he spotted the fatal flaw in the business model instantly. He later famously said: "It was a small store, and it was Victorian... but it was a store for men to buy lingerie for women. I thought that was wrong." When Raymond’s financial troubles peaked in 1982, he reached out to Wexner. They closed the deal for $1 million (some sources suggest it was closer to $4 million when debt and other factors were included, but $1 million is the historical "sale price" for the equity). As soon as Wexner took control, he performed a "retail organ transplant." He kept the name and the sexy vibe but flipped the target audience. He realized that if you want to sell a lot of underwear, you have to sell it to the people who actually wear it. He made the stores bright, feminine, and inviting for women. He stopped trying to make it look like a dark Victorian brothel and instead made it look like a high-end European boutique. He wanted women to feel like they were treating themselves, not just "performing" for a partner. To give the brand prestige, he created a fake "London" headquarters. Early catalogs even listed a fake London address to make the brand seem like an imported luxury, when it was actually being run out of Columbus, Ohio.

The deal remains a cautionary tale in entrepreneurship. Within five years, he turned the $1 million investment into a $100 million business. By the early 90s, it was a billion-dollar empire. Roy Raymond stayed on as president for about a year but eventually left to start a high-end children's retail store called My Child's Destiny. It went bankrupt. In 1993, after watching the brand he founded become a global phenomenon without him, Raymond tragically took his own life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. These are all connected, I promise, stay with me. There will be another post.  ☀️