Nancy Talbot (1920 - 2009) was an American businesswoman who co-founded the Talbots women's retail clothing chain with her husband, Rudolf Talbot.
Talbot was born Nancy Orr in Charlevoix, Michigan, which was the location of her family's summer home.
Talbot left college in 1944 to take a position with the Red Cross and was assigned to a military reconnaissance unit in France near the end of World War II. It was in France where she met her future husband, Rudolf Talbot. The couple married in 1945.
Rudolf and Nancy started a clothing store, which they first called Talbots in a single-family clapboard house in Hingham, Massachusetts. The couple painted the Talbots store's door red, which remains a trademark of Talbots stores up to the present day.
Nancy and Rudolf opened three new stores in Connecticut and Massachusetts during the next 10 years in order to target female consumers who were relocating to the suburbs following World War II. Rudolf Talbot focused on expanding the Talbots company, while Nancy worked as the commpany's buyer, purchasing agent and held creative control over the merchandise. They dropped their mens' and children's clothing lines gradually to focus exclusively on women's apparel.
As of 2009, Talbots has 586 locations and more than $1.5 billion in revenue in 2009.
Nancy Talbot died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease on August 30, 2009, at her home in Boulder, Colorado, at the age of 89.
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