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Neiman Marcus

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Neiman Marcus is an upscale, specialty, retail department store, operated by the Neiman Marcus Group in the United States. The company is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and competes at an average price level above Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom, and on par with Saks Fifth Avenue. The Neiman Marcus Group also operates the exclusive Bergdorf Goodman specialty, retail department stores on Fifth Avenue in New York City and a direct marketing division, Neiman Marcus Direct, which operates catalogue and online operations under the "Horchow," "Neiman Marcus" and "Bergdorf Goodman" names.

Contents

History

The Neiman Marcus headquaters and flagship store on Main Street in downtown Dallas, Texas.
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The Neiman Marcus headquaters and flagship store on Main Street in downtown Dallas, Texas.

Herbert Marcus, Sr., his sister Carrie Marcus Neiman and her husband, A. L. Neiman, came from Atlanta, Georgia with $25,000 to found the Neiman-Marcus retail establishment in Dallas, Texas, on 10 September 1907. Ironically, before the family members came to Dallas, they had an opportunity to invest in a new "sugary soda pop business" in Atlanta. The family decided to pass on investing in the business, which later became Coca-Cola. Many people to this day will still joke that Neiman Marcus "was founded on a mistake."

In 1913, a fire destroyed the Neiman Marcus store and its merchandise. A temporary store was set up and opened in a just 17 days. By 1914, Neiman Marcus reopened in its new, permanent location, on Main Street at Ervay Street. With the opening of this flagship store, Neiman Marcus increased its product selection to include accessories, lingerie and children's clothing, as well as expanding the women's apparel department. In 1929, it began offering menswear. The Main Street building, which many now call the 'original' Neiman Marcus, was given state historic landmark status by the Texas Historical Commission in 1982.

In 1927, Neiman Marcus premiered the first weekly retail fashion show in the United States.

In 1971, the first Neiman Marcus outside Texas opened in Bal Harbour, Florida. In subsequent years, stores have opened in over 30 cities across the United States, including Chicago, Atlanta, Beverly Hills, San Francisco and Las Vegas.

In the late '90s, the company started a small boutique concept called the Galleries of Neiman Marcus, which sold jewelry, gifts and home accessories. The concept struggled and ultimately all three locations, Seattle, Cleveland and Phoenix, were shut. Some believe the locations were wrong and Neiman Marcus officials have hinted the concept might be resurrected.

In 1999, neimanmarcus.com, and the store's online gift registry, debuted under the control of Neiman Marcus Group's Neiman Marcus Direct division.

On 22 January 2002, Neiman Marcus and the fashion world alike mourned the death of Stanley Marcus, who had served as president and chairman of the board for the company.

Over the last 20 years, ownership of Neiman Marcus has passed through several hands. In June 1987, the company was spun off from its retail parent, Carter Hawley Hale Stores, and became a publicly listed company. General Cinema, later to become Harcourt General, still had a roughly 60% controlling interest until 1999, when Neiman Marcus was fully spun-off from its parent company. On May 2nd, 2005, Neiman Marcus Group sold itself to two private equity firms, Texas Pacific Group and Warburg Pincus LLC.

Neiman Marcus Today

Unlike many grand old department stores, Neiman Marcus is still in operation today and is still headquartered in Dallas. The Neiman Marcus Group is comprised of the Specialty Retail stores division — which includes Neiman Marcus Stores and Bergdorf Goodman — and the Direct Marketing division, Neiman Marcus Direct. These retailers offer upscale assortments of apparel, accessories, jewelry, beauty and decorative home products to affluent consumers. The company operates 37 Neiman Marcus stores across the United States and two Bergdorf Goodman stores, in Manhattan. Neiman Marcus' largest market is the South Florida MSA, where they operate five stores. The company also operates 16 Last Call clearance centers. These store operations total more than 5 million square feet (500,000 m²) gross.

The exterior of a typical Neiman Marcus department store at Town Center at Boca Raton located in Boca Raton, Florida.
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The exterior of a typical Neiman Marcus department store at Town Center at Boca Raton located in Boca Raton, Florida.

Neiman Marcus Direct, conducts both print catalog and online operations under the Neiman Marcus, Horchow and Bergdorf Goodman brand names. Under the Neiman Marcus brand, Neiman Marcus Direct primarily offers women's apparel, accessories and home furnishings. Horchow offers quality home furnishings, linens, decorative accessories and tabletop items.

The Company also owns majority interests in two designer resources: Kate Spade, a manufacturer of accessories, and Gurwitch Products, which manufactures Laura Mercier cosmetics. Other luxury retailers that compete with Neiman Marcus include Saks Fifth Avenue and Barneys New York.

Since 1987, Neiman Marcus has accepted merhandise transactions using only its proprietary store credit cards, American Express cards, cash or check for purchases in the retail stores. However, Neiman Marcus is quietly testing the acceptance of Visa and MasterCard at a store in Missouri, as well as in several in-store restaurants in California. (Neiman Marcus has accepted all major credit cards for online purchases since the website opened in 1999.) After Neiman Marcus sold its store credit card business to HSBC in mid-2005, some insiders say that the company will make the changes chainwide later in 2006, along with adding a co-branded Visa, MasterCard or American Express credit card issued by HSBC, which the five-year agreement with HSBC allows.

For many years, Neiman Marcus has issued an annual Christmas catalog, which gets much free publicity from the national media. This is mostly due to its exciting array of unusual and extravagant gift ideas. Some have included a 'his and hers' themed item, trips and cars (see below), to name a few. More affordable gift items are also featured in the catalog.

theshowroom of Neiman Marcus

In the fall of 2004, Neiman Marcus launched a new store within a store concept, theshowroom of Neiman Marcus. This new department is dedicated to selling the high-end furniture and home collections previously only available through Neiman Marcus companion catalogues, The Horchow Collection and NM by Mail. The six Neiman Marcus stores that house the collection are located in Plano-Dallas MSA (Willow Bend), San Francisco (Union Square), Scottsdale (Fashion Square), Chicago (Michigan Avenue), Oak Brook (Oakbrook Center) and Minneapolis (Nicollet Mall).

Trivia and Pop Culture

Neiman Marcus's high-end image was portrayed on the small screen in the 1980s on The Facts of Life, where wealthy character Blair Warner enjoyed shopping there.

During the Apollo 8 mission in December 1968, Marilyn Lovell, wife of astronaut Jim Lovell, who was the Command Module Pilot, received, as a Christmas present, a mink coat that was delivered to her by a Neiman driver in a Rolls-Royce car. The coat was wrapped in shiny blue wrapping paper with two styrofoam balls--one for the Earth and the other for the Moon, and had a card that read, "To Marilyn, from the Man in the Moon."

The store is featured in an urban legend involving the recipe for its popular chocolate chip cookie. According to the legend, a woman and her daughter shopped at a Neiman Marcus in Dallas, Texas. When the woman got her VISA statement, she was charged with a substantial amount of money ($250) without her knowledge when she casually asked for the cookie recipe at the Neiman Marcus Cafe (When asked for the cost, the worker just said the number "250", which she thought meant $2.50). The story is not true, but Neiman Marcus has nonetheless decided to put the cookie recipe up on its website to quell rumors. This legend has been proven false, mainly because Neiman Marcus does not accept Visa for any purchase, and the fact that the same story has been around since the 1940s, except involving a cake. It wasn't until the 1980s when the story changed to cookies. They were first considered as Mrs. Fields Cookies, but later changed to a generic type.

Criticism

Due to the high prices of much of its upscale merchandise, Neiman Marcus is sometimes called "Needless Markup."
A parody of the Neiman Marcus logo against their fur industry.
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A parody of the Neiman Marcus logo against their fur industry.

Some animal-rights activists claim that Neiman Marcus' fur sales contribute to the unnessary deaths of millions of animals every year. While the company claims that it is humane to farm animals for fur, other groups, such as PETA, cite the fact that there are no laws ensuring humane care on US fur farms [link].

Holiday Catalog Cars

Neiman Marcus has often offered limited-edition automobiles in its holiday catalogs. These are usually coordinated with manufacturers as a publicity stunt, though the cars themselves are normally special versions unavailable from other sources and produced in limited numbers.

1970 "His and Hers" Ford Thunderbird
1995 BMW Z3 James Bond edition
1996 GMC Suburban Sony edition
1997 Audi TT
1998 BMW X5
1998 Aston Martin DB7
2000 Lexus SC 430
2001 Ford Thunderbird (200)
2002 Cadillac XLR (101)
2003 BMW 645Ci
2004 Maserati Quattroporte (at $125,000)
2005 Lexus GS 450h (75 at $65,000)

Current Locations and Announced Future Locations

  • Minneapolis - Gaviidae Common on Nicollet Mall - 119,000 sq ft. (opened 1989)

Former Locations

  • Seattle - Westlake Center - 12,000 sq ft. (opened 1999, closed 2002) *The Galleries of Neiman Marcus

References

External links

 

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