Nancy Orr was born in 1920[2] in Charlevoix, Michigan, which was the location of her family's summer home.[1] She was raised in Chicago, Illinois.[1] She graduated from The Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, a private prep school.[1] Nancy went on to attend Radcliffe College for one year, but left in 1944 to take a position with the Red Cross.[1] The Red Cross assigned her to a military reconnaissance unit in France near the end of World War II where she met her future husband, Rudolf Talbot.[1] The couple married in 1945.[1]
The couple returned to the United States. Her father-in-law opened a Johnny Appleseed clothing store in Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1945, but died suddenly, which forced Rudolf Talbot to take over the business.[1] Rudolf Talbot dropped the Johnny Appleseed franchise in 1947, because he disliked the clothing he was selling.[1] Rudolf and Nancy started a new clothing store, which they first called "The Talbots."[3] The business eventually became known as Talbots and soon moved to a single-family clapboard house in Hingham, Massachusetts.[1][3] The couple painted the Talbots store's door red, which remains a trademark of Talbots stores up to the present day.[1][4]
In 1949, the couple distributed 3,000 fliers to potential customers from The New Yorker's mailing list.[3] This was a precursor to the company's catalog, launched in 1952.[3][5]
Nancy and Rudolf opened three new stores in Connecticut and Massachusetts during the next 10 years to target female consumers who were relocating to the suburbs following World War II.[1] Rudolf Talbot focused on expanding the Talbots company, while Nancy worked as the company's buyer, purchasing agent and held creative control over the merchandise.[1] They gradually dropped their men's and children's clothing lines to focus exclusively on women's apparel.[1]
The Talbots sold their company, along with its four existing stores at the time, to General Mills in 1973.[1] In the late 1980s, the company expanded into California.[3]
Nancy Talbot remained at Talbots as a vice president until her retirement in 1983.[1] By the time she retired, Talbots had grown to approximately 30 stores with a catalog circulation of more than 10 million copies per year.[1] As of 2009, Talbots had 586 locations and more than $1.5 billion in revenue.[1]