The End of Fashion by Teri Agins

Author:Teri Agins [Agins Teri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-06-203750-3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1999-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

FOR GENERATIONS, AMERICANS had a love affair with their local department stores. In the mid-nineteenth century, when the first merchant pioneers founded department stores, most towns were just starting to build their central business districts. Retailers, including Marshall Field’s, John Wanamaker in Philadelphia, Rich’s in Atlanta, and Neiman Marcus in Dallas, exposed their communities to the finest of merchandise. In the process, the locals became sophisticated consumers, as well as members of a big retail family.

At Christmastime, for instance, many families from around the Midwest made a special trip to downtown Chicago to enjoy the storybook window displays at Marshall Field’s. They worked their way up to the eighth floor, where Santa was stationed in front of the magnificent seventy-foot Christmas tree in Field’s Walnut Room restaurant. For decades, people put their trust in institutions like Field’s, whose palatial downtown stores and sleek mall branches were symbols of civic pride, just like the Chicago Cubs and the White Sox. Every town had a JCPenney’s and a Sears, which were reliable for kitchen curtains, electric drills, and washing machines. But only department stores delivered style on a grand scale to big cities. Field’s took the lead in Chicago as the arbiter of good taste and high quality, and thus became the premier fashion authority of the Midwest.

By the time “designer” became the merchandising hook starting in the late 1970s, Bloomingdale’s had become among the most tantalizing of New York retailers, introducing shoppers to Pierre Cardin, Yves Saint Laurent, and a kicky new tie designer named Ralph Lauren. Bloomie’s became the quintessential “retailing theater,” especially during its famous international promotions, when the entire store brimmed with exotic merchandise from whatever country Bloomie’s was promoting that year. In 1978 the theme was “India: The Ultimate Fantasy,” while in 1981 it was “China: Heralding the Dawn of a New Era.” Shoppers were treated to folk dancers, cooking demonstrations, and commemorative shopping bags. The foreign promotions didn’t do much to enhance the bottom line, but they worked wonders to polish Bloomie’s mystique. They were the trademark of Marvin Traub, the store’s legendary chairman from 1970 to 1991, who transplanted Bloomie’s chichi to Washington, D.C., and Boston with stunning success.

In coming to Chicago, Bloomie’s took on its stiffest competition outside New York. Marshall Field’s was no longer coasting on its fabled carriage-trade laurels. Field’s had become flashy and very popular after 1982, when the chain was purchased by BAT Industries PLC, the giant tobacco and retail concern from London. BAT had emerged as a white knight to rescue Field’s from the clutches of Wall Street corporate raider Carl Icahn. Flush with cash from its core tobacco business, BAT was determined to fix up Field’s, as well as Saks Fifth Avenue, the other stellar-but-dusty department store chain it had purchased a year earlier. Accordingly, BAT spent freely to upgrade Field’s—about $70 million10 in the first two years. “We had an11 obligation not just to purchase Marshall Field’s, but to put our blood and guts and investment into it,” said Arnold Aronson, who presided over BATs retailing division at the time.

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