Gone, But Not Forgotten

The other day, I was la-de-dolling on Fifth Avenue, and just happened to stroll into Henri Bendel, the famed fashion retailer. To what did my wandering eyes appear… (no, not a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer), but a heavy preponderance of cosmetics and accessories. For a moment I thought I had accidentally walked into Ulta. Someone, I don’t know who, must have stolen all the retailer’s clothing the night before. It had mysteriously been removed…or not.

Like a detective in some old Dr. Thorndike’s mystery novels, I began to collect the forensic evidence of the crime scene.

Henri Bendel, which was founded in 1895, and has long been long a Manhattan icon and anchor, housed in the drop dead gorgeous old Rene Lalique showrooms, is planning to stop selling clothes this summer, and focusing instead on accessories and beauty products.

For more than a century, Bendel’s has distinguished itself for its “store of shops” concept, and has set the standard for the image of high fashion, but now, it appears that its current owner, The Limited Brands, wants to branch out to malls, and limit Bendel’s breadth of inventory. Great, another retailer who for over a century has been know for fashion, is rethinking its core constituency to become a Sephora hybrid? Where will the “Gossip Girls” shop, Loehmann’s? 

Abigail Wexner, wife of Limited Brands CEO, Les Wexner, can I coerce you to intervene? Please!!!

In a news release, the company positioned the changes as an effort to expand the Henri Bendel brand, with six accessories only stores to open in shopping centers nationwide. The New York Times reports that Bendel’s flagship store at 712 Fifth Avenue will stay open, but give up one of its three floors. It’s already history like the reservoir on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

As for convoluted thinking, several employees briefed on the plans said that they were told that Bendel had decided to eliminate the fashion departments because there was no sign of a turnaround in the sale of high-ticket items, but that beauty and gift products were selling well, and typically with much higher margins. If that is true, then why not just sell hot dogs--the mark on them is high too?

About 8 percent of the employees will be laid off, including sales clerks and executives in its buying office. They will be replaced with vile perfume spritzers, the lowest form of retail humanity. In the “Planet of The Fashion Apes” world, they would be the gorillas.

Oh, my darlin’ Clementines everywhere, fashion is no longer reliant on high-ticket items, if you are using that old paradigm, then you will assuredly make asinine choices for your business. Show some backbone, there are great designers who are affordable and can reinforce and reinvigorate your brand, until times turn around. If Bendel's becomes one big glamorous Duane Reade, I’m packing it in. I want to see overpriced dresses, extravagant frocks and ludicrous price tags.

--Ron Knoth, Guest Blogger

Comments

[Ron Knoth]

Dear Bruce,

You're like my new best friend, you get it! What's going on? Has Bendel's lost their mind too? Where is the leadership? Where is the direction? This is Fifth Avenue we're talking about. Over 10,000 people walk by their door every day and they can't get anyone in to by a dress. How hard can a retailer not try?

Exasporated in the City

[Bruce Sanders]

I'm all for anticipating trends and making business decisions rather than emotional decisions. My guess is that these were central to the decisions at Henri Bendel. At the same time, pulling back on a sense of adventure—-especially when it comes to fashion—-does not bode well for a retailer. Stanley Marcus wrote in the July 2000 Retailing Issues Letter some reflections on when he was chief executive of Neiman Marcus: "…There is little reason for a shopper to go across town to a store when it's a foregone conclusion that she'll find the same merchandise in store C that she has already seen in stores A and B. I fully expect to come upon a newspaper headline that proclaims, 'Customers Found Bored to Death in the Sportswear Department of the XYZ Department Store.'"