Where did Victoria’s Secret open its first store in 1977?

Victoria’s Secret opened its first store at Stanford Shopping Center in 1977.

The shopping center is in Palo Alto, California, near Stanford University. Roy and Gaye Raymond created the store after Raymond found conventional department-store lingerie shopping intimidating and unpleasant. The first location helped establish the company’s more specialized, boutique-style approach.

Victoria’s Secret later expanded through catalogs, mall stores, fragrances, and nationally advertised lingerie collections. The company’s early retail identity is sometimes confused with its later headquarters or its first fashion-show venue; those were different locations and milestones.

Stanford Shopping Center remains the key answer because it was the brand’s original retail site, not merely an early branch. The company’s first store predates the 1982 purchase by Leslie Wexner’s company, which transformed Victoria’s Secret into a much larger national business.