Jacqueline Gold

Businesswoman who turned sex toys and lingerie retail chain into household name had breast cancer.

Jacqueline was a brilliant retailer, and champion of women in business. Then in 2011, the nanny of her daughter, Scarlett, admitted trying to poison Gold and Gold was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016 and went into remission the following year after treatment. Her family said in a statement: “It is her vision and creativity that saw Ann Summers grow from an unknown brand to a British household name and staple of the British high street. In 2003, Gold took the government to court and won, after Ann Summers was banned from advertising in jobcentres. In 2020, Ann Summers negotiated a cut in rents via an insolvency procedure after falling to a loss.

Jacqueline Gold, the well known British businesswoman and the queen of women-friendly sex shops, has died at the age of 62 after a long fight against breast ...

In life she was a trailblazer, a visionary, and the most incredible woman, all of which makes this news that much harder to bear.” Gold became chief executive of Ann Summers in 1987 and eventually took it on to more than 100 high streets and malls across the U.K. Her family added in a statement: “From an internship to chief executive officer in less than 10 years, her determination and commitment to creating a unique retail offering led to the creation of a multichannel retail chain, consisting of retail stores, direct sales ambassadors, and a fast-growing online and third-party business.” Her mantra was to turn the sex shop chain into a place for women, who she reckoned became 80% of the in-store customers, while at the same time she turned sex brands into household names. He had died aged 86 after a short illness. Her death on Thursday evening U.K.

Lingerie and sex toy chain's boss tapped into the female market by embracing Britain's peculiar erotic humour.

They were eventually capsized, partly by the internet, partly by the growing realisation among party planners that it was quite hard It was not cost-free, therefore, for women to go browsing in Ann Summers, and Gold attacked this from two directions. The irony is that British culture in the 80s was hardly a stranger to images of women in their underwear, but these images were pretty well always used to sell random things to men.

Jacqueline Gold, whose death was announced on Friday, changed the lives of women at home and at work.

She launched her own scheme on social media to provide mentoring for women entrepreneurs. She was sexually abused by her step-father and suffered from depression. "It came up against a lot of criticism from religious groups," says Ms Hardie. She arrived at Ann Summers, the family business, crashing through social taboos, and refashioned it after her own purpose. She suggested they reach out to women, inviting them to host Tupperware-style parties to sell lingerie and sex toys in their homes. The board took some convincing.