Cheers

January, 1987

'We knew nothing about retail and nothing about business," recalls Mel Ziegler, 41, president of the Banana Republic Travel and Safari Clothing Company. That lack of knowledge did not stop Mel and his wife, Patricia, 37, from leaving their jobs at the San Francisco Chronicle (he was a reporter, she was an artist) in 1978 and opening their first store dedicated to jungle-chic apparel. What the Zieglers lacked in business savvy they made up in knowledge about travel, comfortable clothes and p...