Forever 21

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  Blazer Forever 21

  Camilla

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  Top Forever 21

  Daniela Ramirez

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  Shirt Forever 21

  Daniela Ramirez

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  Sweater Forever 21

  Whitney Deng

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  Falda y chaleco Forever 21

  Fátima Payán

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  Hat Forever 21

  Views by Laura

Forever 21 is a chain of clothing retailers throughout the United States, Philippines, Canada, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Thailand, and South Korea offering fashion and accessories for young women and men. Most of the retailer's apparel is private label and made in Southern California.

1984-1999:

The chain, originally known as Fashion 21, was founded in Los Angeles, California in 1984 by Korean-American Do-Won Chang and his wife, Jin-Sook. The first store , located at 5637 N. Figueroa St. in the Highland Park district of Los Angeles was only 900 square feet (84 m2); it is still in operation and bears the chain's original name. By the end of the first year, sales had risen from $35,000 to $700,000. Fashion 21 eventually expanded at the rate of a new store every six months and changed the Fashion 21 brand name to Forever 21.

In 1989, Forever 21 opened its 11th store and the first store located in a mall. Forever 21 increased its presence by expanding the average size to 5,000 square feet (460 m2) per store. Since then, Forever 21 has been running speciality stores in major mall locations nationwide. In 1995, the company expanded their chain to Florida and opened a store in Miami's Mall of the Americas, this location was the first store outside of California. Adding new stores every six months, Forever 21 had reached a total of 40 stores by 1997.

Creating its own prototype store in Northridge Fashion Center, Forever 21 has employed its proprietary design concepts to all its stores since. By this time Forever 21 also increased its average size to 9,000 square feet (840 m2) per store in prime spots of top tier malls.

2000-2006

Drastically expanding the number of Forever 21 stores nationally, Forever 21 opened XXI flagship stores in Georgia, Texas, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Canada. The average size of XXI venues are average of 24,000 square feet (2,200 m2). Since 2002, Forever 21 has been ranked as one of the 50 largest privately held companies in Los Angeles. In 2005, Forever 21 was operating over 355 locations nationwide with the brands Forever 21, Forever XXI, For Love 21, and Gadzooks. In September 2008, Forever 21 opened its new flagship store in North Atlanta, Georgia (Dunwoody). Its numerous shop-in-shop concepts demonstrates the continuing strength of boutique and specialty retailing over the department or megastore format.

Its revenue topped $1 billion in 2006, placing Forever 21 in the ranks of the top 500 privately held companies in the U.S. The business strategy of Forever 21 has budgeted expenses in advertising. The company chooses to keep their money away from premium real estate that attracts heavy commercial traffic.

2007-Now

On June 23, 2007, Forever 21 opened its second store in Canada after its store in Edmonton. The store is located in Toronto on Yonge Street.

More than 400 stores in the United States, Philippines, Canada, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Behrain, Thailand, and South Korea now operate in the Forever 21 chain, including Forever XXI (large flagship stores with men and women merchandise), For Love 21 (accessories), Reference (similar to Forever21), Heritage 1981 (men's and women's vintage), Twelve by Twelve(upscale Los Angeles), and Gadzooks 21 (formerly Gadzooks). New merchandise arrives in the stores every day. And the merchandise is completely changed every six to eight weeks.

International expansion will soon see a store open in Tokyo, Japan and London, United Kingdom.