Wet Seal names Lynda Davey as Chairman of Board

New Board Members

Effective October 4, 2012, four new Directors joined the Company's Board of Directors: Dorrit M. Bern, Lynda J. Davey, Mindy C. Meads and John S. Mills. Today, Ms. Davey was appointed the Chairman of the Board. The newly appointed Directors filled four vacancies created by the resignations of Harold D. Kahn, Jonathan Duskin, Sidney M. Horn and Henry D. Winterstern. The new Directors joined continuing members Kathy Bronstein, John D. Goodman and Kenneth M. Reiss.

Lynda J. Davey has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Avalon Group Ltd, a boutique investment bank, and Avalon Securities Ltd, one of the few woman-owned FINRA and SEC-registered broker-dealers, since she co-founded the companies in 1992.

Prior to Avalon, Ms. Davey was President of Tribeca Corp., a merchant bank, and worked at Salomon Brothers Inc. Ms. Davey currently serves on the board and chairs the Audit Committee of the Girl Scouts Council of Greater New York and is a Manager of Verite Capital Partners, LLC, a private investment fund. She also served on the Advisory Council of Wells Fargo's Capital Finance Group and its predecessor entity, the Paragon Capital Retail Group.

She has previously served as a board member and Chairman of the Audit Committee for ICTS International, and as a board member of Tuffy Associates Corp., Jane Cosmetics, and Textus Industries, Inc. In addition, Ms. Davey was a founding member of the Advisory Board of the Fashion Institute of Technology's Center for Design Innovation.

Ms. Davey commented, "On behalf of the all of the Company's new Directors, we are very pleased to be joining the Board of Directors of Wet Seal and look forward to working with the other members of the Board to assist in developing a strategic plan that will rejuvenate sales and improve profitability.

Wet Seal has a strong heritage in the junior and young contemporary retail spaces, with a significant opportunity to achieve strong sales and earnings growth over the long term with the right leadership in place. With the inclusion of new members, the Board of Directors possesses extensive backgrounds in the apparel retail industry, including in the areas of operations, finance and merchandising, as well as experience in turnaround situations. I strongly believe that, collectively, we have the qualifications necessary to put Wet Seal on the path to recovery."