Bergdorf Goodman
Encyclopedia
Bergdorf Goodman is a luxury goods department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

 based on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan, or simply Midtown, is an area of Manhattan, New York City home to world-famous commercial zones such as Rockefeller Center, Broadway, and Times Square...

 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. The company was founded in 1899 by Herman Bergdorf and was later owned and managed by Edwin Goodman, and later his son Andrew Goodman.

Today, Bergdorf operates from two stores situated across the street from each other at Fifth Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets. Bergdorf Goodman's main store, which opened at its current location in 1928, is located on the west side of Fifth Avenue. A separate men's store, established in 1990, is located on the east side of Fifth Avenue, directly across the street.

Bergdorf is a subsidiary of Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus, formerly Neiman-Marcus, is a luxury specialty retail department store operated by the Neiman Marcus Group in the United States. The company is headquartered in the One Marcus Square building in Downtown Dallas, Texas, and competes with other department stores such as Saks Fifth...

, which is owned by the private equity
Private equity
Private equity, in finance, is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange....

 firms TPG Capital and Warburg Pincus
Warburg Pincus
Warburg Pincus, LLC is an American private equity firm with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil and Asia. It has been a private equity investor since 1966...

.

Founding and early history (1899-1951)

The company traces its origins to 1899 when Herman Bergdorf, an immigrant from Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

, France, opened a tailor shop just above Union Square
Union Square (New York City)
Union Square is a public square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York.It is an important and historic intersection, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road – now Fourth Avenue – came together in the early 19th century; its name celebrates neither the...

 in downtown Manhattan.

Edwin Goodman, a young 23-year old merchant, based in Lockport, New York
Lockport (city), New York
Lockport is a city in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 21,165 at the 2010 census. The name is derived from a set of Erie canal locks within the city. Lockport is the county seat of Niagara County and is surrounded by the town of Lockport...

, moved to New York City to work as an apprentice for Bergdorf. Within two years, Goodman had raised enough money to purchase an interest in the business, which was renamed Bergdorf Goodman in 1901. in 1906, Bergdorf Goodman moved to a new location on 32nd Street, just west off Fifth Avenue and "Ladies' Mile
Ladies' Mile Historic District
The Ladies' Mile Historic District was designated in May 1989, by the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission to preserve an irregular district of 440 buildings on 28 blocks and parts of blocks in Manhattan, from roughly 18th Street to 24th Street and from Park Avenue South to west of the...

". While Bergdorf preferred the less expensive side street location, Goodman with the location and bought out Bergdorf's interest in the company. Bergdorf would retire to Paris.

Although Goodman had developed a good business as a ladies' tailor on 32nd Street, in 1914, he decided to move uptown. Goodman constructed a five-story building at 616 Fifth Avenue, on the site of what is today Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National...

. In 1914, Goodman became the first couturier to introduce ready-to-wear
Ready-to-wear
Ready-to-wear or prêt-à-porter is the term for factory-made clothing, sold in finished condition, in standardized sizes, as distinct from made to measure or bespoke clothing tailored to a particular person's frame. Off-the-peg is sometimes used for items which are not clothing.Ready-to-wear has...

, making Bergdorf Goodman a destination for American and French fashion.

The store moved to its present location at 5th Avenue and 58th Street in 1928, building its Beaux-Arts style store on the site of the Cornelius Vanderbilt II
Cornelius Vanderbilt II
Cornelius Vanderbilt II was an American socialite, heir, businessman, and a member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family....

 mansion. As he was unsure of the success of the new store's location, (it was uncertain whether customers would follow the store uptown), Goodman designed the new store so that it could be broken up into sections with different storefronts that could be rented out if needed. Early tenants included Van Cleef & Arpels
Van Cleef & Arpels
Van Cleef & Arpels is a French jewellery, watch, and perfume company that was founded in 1896 by Charles Arpels and Alfred Van Cleef. They opened their first boutique in 1906 at 22 place Vendôme, Paris...

, the Grande Maison de Blanc and Dobbs the Hatter. During the Great Depression, however, Goodman thrived, buying the entire building. Throughout the 1930s, Goodman purchased the mortgages of the surrounding businesses, eventually acquiring the entire block. During this period, Bergdorf Goodman was successful enough to have merited an expansion beyond the single store. However, Goodman preferred to operate in a single location where he would be able to personally maintain the quality of the merchandise and service.

The second generation (1951-1972)

Goodman's son, Andrew, assumed the role of president in 1951 and succeeded to the head of the company in 1953, following the death of his father. Andrew was responsible for enhancing Bergdorf's reputation and expanding its range of merchandise and services.

During Andrew's tenure as chairman, Bergdorf opened a fur salon, developed the successful Bergdorf Goodman Number Nine perfume ("Love Potion Number Nine"), and created Miss Bergdorf, a ready-to-wear line for younger customers.

The store began a $1 million expansion in 1959 into two adjacent buildings. The Boys and Girls gift shop expanded into a whole floor, and the beauty salon and bridal, fur and men's departments also expanded. Eight years later, a $2.5 million expansion in 1967 nearly doubled the store's area, to 120000 square feet (11,148.4 m²).

New ownership (1972–1990)

In 1972, Andrew Goodman sold Bergdorf Goodman to Broadway-Hale Stores, which would become Carter Hawley Hale Stores
Carter Hawley Hale Stores
Broadway Stores, Inc. was an American retailer based in Southern California. Known through its history as Carter Hawley Hale Stores and Broadway Hale Stores over time, it acquired other retail store chains in regions outside its California home base and became in certain retail sectors a regional...

 for $12.5 million. CHH had acquired Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus, formerly Neiman-Marcus, is a luxury specialty retail department store operated by the Neiman Marcus Group in the United States. The company is headquartered in the One Marcus Square building in Downtown Dallas, Texas, and competes with other department stores such as Saks Fifth...

, a three-unit operation at the time, in 1969. By the time of the sale, Bergdorf Goodman was the only large high-quality specialty store in the U.S. that remained independently owned. However, its decision not to build suburban branches left it with a relatively modest profit margin. He remained the landlord of the store and kept a penthouse apartment
Penthouse apartment
A penthouse apartment or penthouse is an apartment that is on one of the highest floors of an apartment building. Penthouses are typically differentiated from other apartments by luxury features.-History:...

 on the building's top floor.

At first, CHH considered building branch locations, ultimately only constructing one location, in nearby White Plains, New York
White Plains, New York
White Plains is a city and the county seat of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound...

 in 1972. This location was eventually converted to a Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus, formerly Neiman-Marcus, is a luxury specialty retail department store operated by the Neiman Marcus Group in the United States. The company is headquartered in the One Marcus Square building in Downtown Dallas, Texas, and competes with other department stores such as Saks Fifth...

 branch store in 1981. To combat its image difficulties, the company hired Dawn Mello in 1975 as vice president of fashion. She was successful in reinvigorating the conservative store and became president in 1984. She left her post in 1989 to work for the floundering Italian fashion house Gucci
Gucci
The House of Gucci, better known simply as Gucci , is an Italian fashion and leather goods label, part of the Gucci Group, which is owned by French company PPR...

, though she returned to her post as president in 1994.

Bergdorf Goodman's parent company became the object of takeover bids in the 1980s, and as a way to maintain its independence, Carter Hawley
Carter Hawley Hale Stores
Broadway Stores, Inc. was an American retailer based in Southern California. Known through its history as Carter Hawley Hale Stores and Broadway Hale Stores over time, it acquired other retail store chains in regions outside its California home base and became in certain retail sectors a regional...

 completed a major financial restructuring. In 1987, Bergdorf Goodman was spun off, together with Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus, formerly Neiman-Marcus, is a luxury specialty retail department store operated by the Neiman Marcus Group in the United States. The company is headquartered in the One Marcus Square building in Downtown Dallas, Texas, and competes with other department stores such as Saks Fifth...

 and Contempo Casuals to form Neiman Marcus Group. The new company was headquartered in Dallas, Texas, where the significantly larger Neiman Marcus had been based for 80 years.

Reaching the centennial (1990–Present)

Chairman and CEO Ira Neimark expanded the women's store three times in the 1990s. The men's store was moved across the street to the old FAO Schwarz space at 745 Fifth Avenue in 1990. This move made it possible to make more space available for women's fashions. In 1997, the penthouse apartment on the building's ninth floor (formerly the Goodman family residence) was converted into the John Barrett Salon and Susan Ciminelli Day Spa. In 1999, the Beauty Level opened directly below the main floor, offering a luxury spa and Goodman's Café, serving lunch and afternoon tea.

In 2002, Bergdorf Goodman underwent a major renovation, during which artisans and craftspeople began a dramatic restoration of the main floor of the women's store. In 2003, the store introduced new boutiques for Chanel
Chanel
Chanel S.A. is a French fashion house founded by the couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, well established in haute couture, specializing in luxury goods . She gained the name "Coco" while maintaining a career as a singer at a café in France...

, Giorgio Armani
Giorgio Armani
Giorgio Armani is an Italian fashion designer, particularly noted for his menswear. He is known today for his clean, tailored lines. He formed his company, Armani, in 1975, and by 2001 was acclaimed as the most successful designer to come out of Italy, with an annual turnover of $1.6 billion and a...

, Gucci
Gucci
The House of Gucci, better known simply as Gucci , is an Italian fashion and leather goods label, part of the Gucci Group, which is owned by French company PPR...

, Versace
Versace
Gianni Versace S.p.A. , usually referred to as Versace, is an Italian fashion label founded by Gianni Versace in 1978.The first Versace boutique was opened in Milan's Via della Spiga in 1978, and its popularity was immediate. Today, Versace is one of the world's leading international fashion houses...

, and Yves Saint Laurent. The Bergdorf Goodman Men's store features exclusive brands such as Loro Piana
Loro Piana
Loro Piana is an Italian clothing company specialising in high-end, luxury cashmere and wool products.-History:Originally from Trivero , the Loro Piana family started as merchants of wool fabrics at the beginning of the nineteenth century...

, Kiton
Kiton
Kiton is a clothing company founded in 1968 in Naples, Italy by Ciro Paone. It opened its US$40 million New York flagship and showroom on East 54th Street in 2004, it also opened a shop in London. Like many other fashion brands, Kiton has diversified to include sportswear, footwear, fragrances,...

, Brunello Cucinelli, John Lobb, Bontoni
Bontoni
Bontoni is a third-generation Italian family company that produces a line of hand-made men's dress shoes. The company produces fewer than 10 pair a day. Bontoni's bottega, or workshop, is located in the Marche region of Italy. It takes about twelve weeks to complete a pair of ready-made and five...

, Tom Ford
Tom Ford
Thomas Carlyle "Tom" Ford is an American fashion designer and film director. He gained international fame for his turnaround of the Gucci fashion house and the creation of the Tom Ford label before directing the Oscar-nominated film A Single Man.-Early life :Tom Ford was born August 27, 1961 in...

, and Charvet. Bergdorf's competition includes other high-end retailers such as Bloomingdale's
Bloomingdale's
Bloomingdale's is an American department store owned by Macy's, Inc. .Bloomingdale's started in 1861 when brothers Joseph and Lyman G. Bloomingdale started selling hoop-skirts in their Ladies Notions' Shop on Manhattan's Lower East Side...

, Lord & Taylor
Lord & Taylor
Lord & Taylor, colloquially known as L&T, or LT, based in New York City, is the oldest upscale, specialty-retail department store chain in the United States. Concentrated in the eastern U.S., the retailer operated independently for nearly a century prior to joining American Dry Goods...

, Barneys New York
Barneys New York
Barneys New York is a chain of luxury department stores headquartered in New York City. The chain owns large stores in New York City, Beverly Hills, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Las Vegas, and Scottsdale, and smaller stores in other locations across the United States.Brands sold include...

, Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue is a luxury American specialty store owned and operated by Saks Fifth Avenue Enterprises , a subsidiary of Saks Incorporated. It competes in the high-end specialty store market in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, i.e. 'the 3 B's' Bergdorf, Barneys, Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor...

, and owner Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus, formerly Neiman-Marcus, is a luxury specialty retail department store operated by the Neiman Marcus Group in the United States. The company is headquartered in the One Marcus Square building in Downtown Dallas, Texas, and competes with other department stores such as Saks Fifth...

.

On May 2, 2005, Bergdorf's parent company, Neiman Marcus Group, was acquired in a leveraged buyout
Leveraged buyout
A leveraged buyout occurs when an investor, typically financial sponsor, acquires a controlling interest in a company's equity and where a significant percentage of the purchase price is financed through leverage...

 (LBO), selling itself to two private equity
Private equity
Private equity, in finance, is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange....

 firms, Texas Pacific Group
Texas Pacific Group
TPG Capital is one of the largest private equity investment firms globally, focused on leveraged buyout, growth capital and leveraged recapitalization investments in distressed companies and turnaround situations. TPG also manages investment funds specializing in growth capital, venture capital,...

 and Warburg Pincus
Warburg Pincus
Warburg Pincus, LLC is an American private equity firm with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil and Asia. It has been a private equity investor since 1966...

.

In popular culture

Bergdorf Goodman has found its way into a variety of movies and television shows over the years. In the 1953 movie, How to Marry a Millionaire, Lauren Bacall's character, Schatze Page, reprimands Betty Grable's character, Loco Dempsey, and says "Next thing you got to remember is the gentlemen you meet at the cold cuts counter may not be as attractive as the one you meet in the mink department at Bergdorf's." In the 1962 movie That Touch of Mink
That Touch of Mink
That Touch of Mink is a 1962 romantic comedy starring Cary Grant and Doris Day. The film co-stars Gig Young, John Astin, Audrey Meadows, and Dick Sargent. In addition, baseball stars Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra make cameo appearances....

, Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...

 is feted by Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...

 with a shopping spree at Bergdorf Goodman's, and the store is mentioned several times in the film. In the credits of the film, Bergdorf Goodman's is thanked "for being Bergdorf Goodman". In the 1966 film, Penelope
Penelope
In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope is the faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is eventually reunited with him....

, the main character, played by Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...

, uses the proceeds of a bank robbery to purchase her disguise at Bergdorf's. In the 1970 film Airport
Airport
An airport is a location where aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land. Aircraft may be stored or maintained at an airport...

, a woman coming in from France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 is stopped at customs after failing to declare her purchases. "Look at the Bergdorf Goodman labels!" she replies, although they have obviously been altered. In a 1974 episode of Rhoda
Rhoda
Rhoda is an American television sitcom, starring Valerie Harper, which ran for five seasons, from 1974 to 1978 airing in 109 episodes. The show was a spin-off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which Harper between the years 1970 and 1974 had played the role of Rhoda Morgenstern, a spunky,...

, Phyllis shows up late for her wedding, drawing everyone's attention. "Well," she exclaims, "apparently this dress is everything the woman at Bergdorf's said it would be!" In the 1981 film Arthur, Dudley Moore
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...

 shops for sweaters at Bergdorf's when he sees Linda (Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....

) shoplifting a tie there.

Bergdorf Goodman was a favorite shopping spot for Sex And The City
Sex and the City
Sex and the City is an American television comedy-drama series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of ninety-four episodes...

s main character, Carrie Bradshaw
Carrie Bradshaw
Carrie Preston is the fictional narrator and lead character of the HBO sitcom/drama Sex and the City, portrayed by actress Sarah Jessica Parker. She is a semi-autobiographical character created by Candace Bushnell, who published the book Sex and the City, based on her own columns in the New York...

. It was featured in the opening to Sex and the City 2
Sex and the City 2
Sex and the City 2 is a 2010 American romantic comedy film directed by Michael Patrick King. It is the sequel to the 2008 film Sex and the City, which is based on the HBO TV series of the same name....

, with the girls meeting at the entrance of the store and buy wedding gifts there. On Boston Legal
Boston Legal
Boston Legal is an American legal dramedy created by David E. Kelley, which was produced in association with 20th Century Fox Television for the ABC...

, Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox, OC is a Canadian American actor, author, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the late 1970s, Fox's roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy ; Alex P...

's character tells Julie Bowen
Julie Bowen
Julie Bowen is an American film and television actress. She played Carol Vessey on Ed and Denise Bauer on Boston Legal. She is best known for playing Claire Dunphy on the sitcom Modern Family, for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2011...

's character, "You know that coat you liked in the window of Bergdorf Goodman's? I'll buy you Bergdorf Goodman's." On the MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

 series The City
The City (MTV series)
The City is an MTV reality television series. The first spin-off of MTV's, The Hills, it follows one of the show's former cast members, Whitney Port, as she moves to New York City to work for fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg. The program premiered on December 29, 2008 and concluded its first...

, Whitney Port's friend Samantha works as an assistant buyer at Bergdorf and there has also been scenes shot in the BG Restaurant. Bergdorf also figures into the lyrics of Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...

's 2007 song, "30 Something
30 Something (song)
"30 Something" is the third single from Jay-Z's album Kingdom Come and was produced by Dr. Dre. The main theme of the song is Jay undermining "flossin" as pertaining to the general view on hip hop...

", and one of the main characters of Plum Sykes
Plum Sykes
Victoria "Plum" Sykes is an English-born fashion-writer, novelist and New York socialite. "Plum" was a childhood nickname .- Early years and antecedents :...

' 2005 novel, Bergdorf Blondes
Bergdorf Blondes
Bergdorf Blondes was the début novel of Plum Sykes, an English-born fashion writer and New York “it girl”. It was first published in the USA by Miramax Books, and in Britain by Viking, in 2004. Penguin published a paperback edition in 2005....

, is a descendant of the store's founding family.

In 2001, it was the subject of the documentary film Dita and the Family Business
Dita and the Family Business
Dita and the Family Business is a 2001 documentary film directed by Joshua Taylor and Ferne Pearlstein about the family behind the New York City department store Bergdorf Goodman. It was first released at the 2001 San Diego Latino Film Festival....

.

External links

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