Journelle

Journelle is a New York lingerie retailer founded by Claire Chambers, who opened its first store on Union Square in Manhattan in December 2007. It began as a multi-brand boutique selling European and American labels under one roof, later added its own collection, and has changed owners several times since.

It is a useful case study in how hard specialty lingerie retail is in the United States, and in how a store name can outlast its founder.

Claire Chambers and the Union Square shop

When Journelle opened, the American lingerie market was split between two extremes. Department stores sold big-volume brands on crowded floors. Victoria's Secret dominated the malls. Specialty boutiques selling French, Italian and British labels existed, but mostly as single, owner-run shops.

Chambers set out to build a chain of them. The Union Square store sold a wide selection of independent and heritage brands with trained staff to fit bras, and sold the same edit online.

A small chain, 2010 to 2015

The expansion was steady rather than fast:

Year	Opening
2007	Union Square flagship, December
2010	SoHo, November, and Miami Beach
2011	Upper East Side, Manhattan
2015	Chicago, 1725 N. Damen Street, November

A Los Angeles shop on Santa Monica Boulevard at Westfield Century City was later added and has since closed.

Triumph's stake in Journelle and a house label

In 2013 Triumph International, the Swiss-German lingerie group, acquired a majority stake in Journelle. For Triumph, which was strong in Europe and Asia but less visible in American premium retail, a New York boutique chain offered a window onto a different customer.

Journelle also began making its own product. Before the 2012 holiday season it introduced luxury sleepwear under the Journelle name, and in autumn 2015 it launched a full Journelle Collection of bras, briefs and sleepwear. A house label also gave the stores a product no competitor could stock. Satin and silk sleepwear and lace sets were the early focus.

Bridal

Bridal lingerie has been one of the store's specialties, sold through fitting-room consultations that pair wedding-day sets with pieces from the house label and outside brands. It is a service that suits a fitting-room business better than a website.

Chambers leaves, owners change

Chambers left in 2015, shortly before the Chicago store opened. Over the next four years the company changed hands more than once. In summer 2019 it was bought by Sapna Palep and her husband Guido Campello. Campello was co-chief executive and creative director of Cosabella, the Miami lingerie brand his family founded, so the purchase put Journelle under owners who already ran a lingerie label.

WWD reported that the new owners wanted to expand the brand into medical lingerie, an area where trained fitters have an advantage over self-service retailers. The trade paper later covered plans for a new headquarters in New York combining the brand's offices with a retail store and a wellness center.

Where it stands now

Journelle's later history shows the pattern of American specialty lingerie in the 2010s: rapid store openings, a strategic investor, a founder exit, then a smaller, more focused business. Recent company listings show four locations across New York and Chicago, and the online shop serves customers in the United States and Canada. That is a modest footprint next to the national chains, but it is also a footprint that survived a decade in which many American lingerie boutiques closed for good, squeezed between discount online sellers and the big mall brands.

What has stayed constant since the Union Square opening is the proposition: expert fitting and a mix of brands that are hard to find together anywhere else, with a house label now sitting next to them on the rail.

Last updated October 7, 2026