What Was The Luxury Department Store Experience Like?
Reflecting on a conversation with my mom about Saks' acquisition of Neiman Marcus and what it means for the future of luxury department store shopping + some ideas for Saks leadership from yours truly
Hi Chickies!!
If you haven’t heard, Saks Fifth Avenue has acquired Neiman Marcus, bringing Saks, Neiman’s, and Bergdorf Goodman under the same corporate umbrella. The merger is a big deal and fashion business outlets have noted that this conglomerate seems to be positioning themselves to take on e-commerce. Those same outlets have expressed skepticism about this positioning; the luxury customer does not want to make a simple transaction for luxury goods, they want to have a “wrap-around feeling when they shop luxury.” When I envision that wrap-around feeling, I’m envisioning the department stores of yore. Yore being when my mom was my age, so the late 80s and early 90s.
To paint you a picture: my mom is my thrifting hero and in many ways, I feel that I’m living a time-jumped version of my parents’ early life together (the Before Stephanie Time, or BST, as I sometimes say to my parents), or what I imagine it to have been like based on stories and some pieces of evidence. Before having kids, my mom worked in event planning at a big hotel in Manhattan. She has been in an elevator with Mick Jagger and worked at a restaurant that Jackie Kennedy frequented.` When I was a kid, years after she’d left her hospitality career to stay home with us, I’d watch her get ready to go places, and play in her closet. Her chic former NYC hotel manager life oozed out of her closet. Every time I’d flip through her racks of suits or kitten heels, she’d say “oh I don’t need a wardrobe like this anymore…” She had racks and racks of colorful skirt suits, big costume jewelry spilling out of a jewelry box. When it came to beauty products, she only wore Chanel No. 5 perfume, red lipstick, and red nail polish, all of which was stashed away in my parents’ bathroom. Her closet floor was tiled with 90s kitten heels. It was like a portal to who my mom was before she had the three of us kids. Now, I have a closet that I am slowly stuffing to the gills with similar colorful skirt suits (they’re all vintage so prob from a similar time too), earrings spilling out of a jewelry box, no Chanel No. 5 but I’m working on finding a signature scent, and my favorites from my mom’s shoe collection, which I’ve convinced her to give to me (thanks Mom). Like I said, a time-jumped version.
While I buy most of my clothes online or in thrift stores, my mom bought all this stuff at department stores, like Neiman Marcus or Saks. So, for research purposes, I called my mom to find out about what that wrap-around feeling was like back then. Here’s a little snip of our call:
SG: When you think of department store shopping, what was it like before e-commerce?
Mom: I used to shop at Bonwood Teller. I still remember the lavender shopping bag. It only catered to women and it was right down the street from Bergdorf’s so you had the experience of going down Fifth Avenue and it was wonderful that way. I’m pretty sure the Saks Fifth Avenue shoe department was on the eighth floor and people used to say that it was so big, it had its own zip code. If you watch Pretty Woman, when she went into that store, that’s what it was like. Someone was assigned to you and they pulled things for you. There’s a seating area, which wasn’t popular in regular malls. It’s almost like bridal shopping, where the bride goes in and tries on dresses, and people are fussing over the bride. Sometimes they’d bring you a little beverage. It was a leisurely shopping experience. And the store is always decorated beautifully and some places you had to make an appointment. That was how they catered to you. Anything that came home with you was wrapped so beautifully: the tissue paper, the bag, the ribbons. It was a day of beauty. People built traditions around that beauty: the shop windows at Christmastime, tea at the restaurant in the department store, circling things in the catalogue for birthday gift or Christmas gift wishlists.
SG: How does that differ from your shopping experiences now?
Mom: I think it’s now more commercialized and doesn’t have that flair. Returning stuff is a hassle. No one is there to help you really. The malls are losing so many anchor stores that used to give that luxurious feeling even within a mall.
SG: The version of service you’re describing sounds somewhat similar to the luxury brands’ stores now. Like I’m thinking of the process people go through to buy a Birkin. They go to the brick and mortar Hermes store and get waited on hand and foot there. How was shopping these designer brands different then versus now?
Mom: Back then, all the designer brands used to just be inside the store and that’s where you’d go to buy it. I liked the fact that in one spot I could see every single new item that’s particular to that designer. They always had the top of the line in the department stores so there was less of a need to have to go to the actual brand’s brick and mortar store.
SG: And what do you think caused this shift away from that wrap around service?
Mom: I think what happened is that people shy away from being helped. They don’t want to be pressured into a sale or they don’t want to have a conversation. I used to window shop a lot or walk through the store and not buy anything or only buy one or two things. Now, people are on a mission to buy something; they’re not shopping, they’re buying.
*and scene*
I think my mom is right, and toward the end there, we started talking about what standout service really is in an age of hyper-anxious people. We spitballed a bit about what my generation wants from service people, in a store or in a restaurant.
Reflecting on this chat above and the spitballing at the end, I think in an age where people are anxious to get on the phone, to order with a server, to wave off a sales associate in a store, it’s hard to imagine that people want the wrap-around service that my mom is talking about. People only expect that, like my mom said, when they’re trying on a wedding dress. But I think it’s also something people are craving in an authentic way. There are plenty of TikToks out there mocking the very overbearing sales girls at Aritzia, and that Aritzia only has mirrors outside of the dressing rooms, so you have to humiliatingly go outside of your little curtained off safe area to parade around in a pair of ill-fitting jeans to get the girl waiting on you to bring you a different size. She’s always hunting you down throughout the store and writing your name on your dressing room. It’s a solid attempt at recreating this wraparound service, but I think the negative feeling people get is it doesn’t bear marks of authenticity.
Take a different example of perhaps how to do it right: I now live in Carroll Gardens and for years in law school I worked at Cafe Spaghetti, a neighborhood favorite among the Caroll Gardens set, of which I now am. Carroll Gardens is a yuppie neighborhood these days. I know all the stroller brands from working at Cafe Spaghetti (Uppa Baby is the one of choice), I’ve seen every iteration of that Amazon parka all the Brooklyn moms have, I am deeply familiar with Farm Rio and Hill House’s offerings (the *it* mom brands here), and I know all the *it* schools within the neighborhood. This is all a long way of saying that I know Gen X and millennials of a certain tax bracket, who are often the luxury shoppers that these stores are hoping to attract. They’re not gazillionaires, but they’re doing very well for themselves. They are also young enough to kind of get that very 2020s angst of talking to strangers. Now, like I said, Cafe Spaghetti is a fan favorite in this neighborhood. And while I love the place and think the food is great, Carroll Gardens is swimming in great Italian food, so it must stand out in other ways. The other way Cafe Spaghetti stands out is a deeply personal touch to their service. They make an effort to learn the names of people who go there more than once, to learn the names of their neighbors. They put their regulars’ number in their “Bat Phone” so that the regulars can text them their takeout orders or requests for reservations or find out if there are seats at the bar available. They know their regulars’ preferences, favorite drinks and wines, what kinds of tables they like, the works. And I like to think it comes off as authentic because it is authentic. The staff there (and I am biased) genuinely cares for their regulars and wants to provide top of the line service.
They love creating *memories* for these people.
And that is (imo) the wrap-around focus the department stores should be having. Many of the things my mom talked about that department stores used to do are, like I said to her, things the luxury brands are doing for their customers now. Everyone is doing it now. But what department stores used to be good at, in addition to that level of service, is creating memories, with things like what my mom mentions: restaurants, distinct packaging, store windows, etc. Yes, the personalized service is great and they should bring that back (please make it easier to make returns and repairs, I beg), but they also need to bring with it a mindset toward memory-making, which will give that personalized service that authentic feeling again.
And this is not just for wealthy people! Something wonderful about the memory-making mindset is that it brings in people (for Saks folks reading this: customers) from all tax brackets. People from all kinds of walks of life go to Saks to see the Christmas windows. It’s a part of so many people’s Christmas traditions now. Replicate that across experiences. If you (you as in Saks) can make the department store experience feel aspirational, you can bring in more and more customers.
Some free memory-making event ideas for Saks execs (if you use these that’s fine, but encourage people to subscribe to Miss Me Mag):
Mother’s Day Fashion Shows in partnership with fancy PTAs or non-profits chaired by fancy moms: make it an event that Rory’s Chilton friends’ moms would’ve planned and attended. Make it a fundraiser for some cause. If you can get some kind of rich enclave community to make this type of event a part of their annual traditions, you’re building relationships that will last for years and generations. (This is a general tip: hyperlocalizing your operations will probably benefit you in the longterm. A Houston shopper is different from a Santa Monica shopper.)
If the department store is bringing in a new brand, do small, curated brand debut celebration dinners and invite your top shoppers. Do a Q&A with the department store buyers who found the brand, with the brand founders, ask them about the brand and why it stands out. Bonus points if you focus this on a theme like sustainable brands, size-inclusive brands, indie perfumeries, founders of color, you get the vibes.
Advent Calendars like the ones all the luxury brands do that people go nuts over every year. I am compelled to consume stuff every year with those.
Hold book signings at department stores for those it girl millennial authors that everyone is reading. I’m thinking like a Sally Rooney.
Or cooking events using brands and kitchenware the store carries, featuring food creators who are trending amongst the Brooklyn moms (or moms in your area). I’m thinking Wishbone Kitchen filming an episode of dinner with friends where she designs a tablescape using Saks-carried linens, plates, and flatware that goes in the store window. Or Molly Baz doing the same. Or me (wait who said that??).
This isn’t an event but you need to make the stores less fluorescent. They don’t feel luxurious, they feel dated, or they feel like hospitals. No in between.
Saks should make a documentary like The September Issue, but about the Christmas windows creation. Interview the people involved, going back decades, and stream it on some service. People would love that. Then screen it at your stores and invite, again, your most loyal shoppers and local celebrities/influencers. Do a little dinner. Make people reminiscent.
Be on the damn pulse more. Not a memory-making thing really, but I feel like the 90s homemaker is getting a real moment right now with the Ina memoir coming out and the Martha Stewart doc being released. Those are moments the department stores should capitalize on. They were part of the same cultural zeitgeist at that same time. Finger on this pulse!!!! I think the next woman who is going to get this same treatment is Oprah. Get Oprah in there!
Hold contests for holiday packaging designing. Like get a bunch of artists (local or national) to do a contest for wrapping paper design, everything down to the ribbons. Stream it like it’s a version of Project Runway. Again, premier it at your stores and invite local leaders.
Bridal is a huge area that gets even crazier every year. Make bridal shopping at Saks an experience of some kind.
Respond to the changing life cycle of women. People used to register for their entire home’s equipment at Saks for their wedding. Get some influencers to register for their “big girl apartment” and make it a girlboss feminism thing. Alluding to that one SATC episode where Carrie registers at Manolo Blahnik after tearing her friend a new asshole about her shoes going missing is encouraged!
Ok that’s all my theories. I’d love your ideas for events that would be compelling to you or people you know! DM me, comment, email back with your thoughts for a wrap-around experience that would convince you to buy stuff.
Ily a milli,
Steph
Oooohhh your mom is so right, I mess when shopping was more interactive, I’m going to try being that back