Doncaster Revenue and Competitors

Doncaster got its start in 1931 as the Doncaster Collar and Shirt Company in Rutherfordton, NC. The founder, S.B. (Bobo) Tanner Jr., the son of a wealthy Southern textile manufacturer, and his wife Millie, the daughter of a successful mid-Western farmer, named the company after the town of Doncaster, England, a favorite stop on their honeymoon tour. The Doncaster business, as we know it today, evolved from an unexpected opportunity in 1935 that transformed the familiar shirt patterns of the Doncaster Collar and Shirt Company to the fashionable shirtwaist dress. It was a call from the Junior League of Charlotte that introduced the idea of selling these fashionable designs through this organization to raise funds for its various civic projects. Doncaster launched the original direct sales of high-end fashions, with the earliest dresses being sold through the women of the Junior League, an able and energetic sales force who was in contact with a large network of women. They were some of the city's most prominent citizens; women of elegant taste and independent means who were giving their time and energy to support projects of importance. As women in other cities began to hear of these Doncaster fashions, mostly by word of mouth, the interest in wearing them and selling them spread quickly across the United States.