Luciano Manganella’s Final Sale

From Manhattan, Manganella continued to direct Jasmine Sola’s every move. He oversaw the hiring and operations, spearheaded all the buying. If Manganella didn’t like something, he told you straight up—a rare quality in an industry filled with backstabbing and double talk, and one that earned him the respect of peers, employees, and vendors alike.

By the late ’80s, the Cambridge store had become a destination for flocks of teenage girls and twentysomething women from both the city and the suburbs. They loved the young-and-cool but not intimidating feel and the spree-worthy clothing and shoes. Jasmine Sola was the first to bring Boston shoppers blockbuster labels like BCBG, Theory, Custo Barcelona, Guess, Vivienne Tam, and Juicy Couture. When cult footwear designer Steve Madden was just getting started, Manganella bought shoes from him out of the back of his van.

Manganella refused to resell any Jasmine Sola merchandise—either from the store line, or vendors’—to discounters like Filene’s Basement and Marshalls. He believed liquidation would hurt his brand, since the items would still bear Jasmine Sola tags as well as the designer’s labels. With that practice adding to Manganella’s status as an industry favorite, boutique owners from across the country visited his Harvard Square shop to study inventory and note what they should order next.

In 1996, after his third daughter was born, Manganella moved his family back to Boston. Two years later, with Jasmine Sola now really taking off, he opened a second store on Newbury Street. Correctly predicting the coming designer denim boom, he was the first retailer in New England to stock jeans by Seven and Citizens of Humanity; he was also among the first nationally to sell J Brand and True Religion, whose price tags can exceed $300. By the end of 2004, he had eight Jasmine Solas spread across New England, all in enviable locales, with plans to launch 12 more. He regularly checked up on each in person, ruled attentively, and intimately knew his inventory, his customer, and his staff. “He is a retail magician,” says Felicia Gervais, a real estate consultant who worked with the Jasmine locations in the Prudential Center and Chestnut Hill. “There are not many small storeowners left in the world who have his unique sense of what works.”

By this time, national clothing companies were showing interest in buying Jasmine Sola. In 2005, New York & Company (formerly Lerner) offered $20 million, a sum Manganella flatly rejected. Then Boston-based J.Jill put a more flattering $30 million on the table. Manganella was ready to sign when New York & Company came back dangling even better terms. With 490 national stores selling practical, inexpensive clothing, New York & Company saw the higher-end, trendier Jasmine as an opportunity to step into a profitable market without cannibalizing its own brand. On top of its base offer of $22.5 million, it added a sweetener: $8.1 million worth of stock for Manganella, and the promise of greater exposure for his chain. That same summer, Casual Corner—an inexpensive clothing chain not unlike New York & Company—was on the market, and rumors circulated that New York & Company would buy roughly half its 550 locations and convert some into Jasmine Sola outposts.

Manganella was vacationing in Positano, Italy when he received New York & Company’s pitch. He loved what he heard. And so on July 19, 2005, New York & Company had itself a deal. Under its terms, $7 million of the buyout package would be held in escrow, available to Manganella after one year. He’d also stay on as Jasmine Sola’s president, at a salary of $350,000. For a guy who’d poured much of his earnings back into his business, it was a heady payday.

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