Fashion Retailing: The Fate of the U.S. Department Store

So Macy's is consolidating its divisions. I feel badly for the people involved who have families and things, but to be honest, I don't feel that bad for the company. This Christmas, I did an almost unheard of thing in the fashion industry. I went shopping in a suburban mall. Namely, Westfield Montgomery Mall in Rockville, Maryland where I grew up. It used to be just Montgomery Mall, but the Westfield Group is buying up as many malls as it can -- they're also launching Europe's biggest mall in London, annoyingly close to where I live -- and renaming them all Westfield, thereby eliminating the only the only trace of individuality or character a mall has. But I digress.

I went shopping at Westfield Montgomery and the nearby White Flint mall, which I think is still just White Flint, and I was shocked, shocked!, at how bad it was. I went to Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom's, Lord & Taylor and honestly couldn't tell which store I was in once I crossed the threshold. (Though Nordstrom's was the best of the lot.) The same product, the same brands, the same horrible lighting and dingy dressing rooms. But mostly it was the product that depressed me. How many pairs of cheap, made in China, ballet-flats with giant baubles stuck to them do they think we need? Wanted a coat for winer? Well, you'd better have wanted a down puffa jacket with a faux fur hood or you were out of luck. If you did want one, you could find them by CK, DKNY, Kors by Michael Kors, but with little, if any, difference between them. I got the eerie sense that they were coming out of the same factory, with a little Chinese man at the end putting different tags into them with willy-nilly.

Needless to say I didn't buy anything at any of them. I went straight to the welcoming confines of J.Crew and Banana Republic where at least there's some sort of brand identity. (To be honest, I didn't buy anything at any of them either and when a UK-based fashion editor goes shopping with a 2 to 1 exchange rate working in her favor and still doesn't find a single thing . . . well, then things are very bad indeed.)

Part of the problem is the consolidation of the retailers. The Federated merger means that the stores have all the power and, if the news about Macy's is true, the buying is increasingly being centralized, leaving little room for regional differences.

But I don't think the brands deserve to be let entirely off the hook. Surely, they could work harder to make sure their second brands had a strong identity, a la Marc by Marc Jacobs.

I'm trying to get a meeting with the new owners of Lord & Taylor this week. NRDC, a private equity group, bought the chain in 2007 for $1.1 billion. Then they brought in Brian Bradley to do their in-house collection and brought in Joseph Abboud (the man, not the brand) to re-do their men's collection. They then bought Peter Som, who I adore. Most recently they bought Fortunoff and are said to be considering buying the bridal chain Kleinfields. I am pretty firmly convinced that that they are the last hope for the U.S. department store. Jane Elfers, the C.E.O. told WWD in December that the American suburbs were "the land of opportunity." Boy, did she get that right. More on her vision thing if I can track her down.

Comments

[leonard fr ...:]

Great, great points I have had these feelings, Christmas season after Christmas its seem to me that they all(RETAILERS AND MFGS) get together in the same room and pick, I know this is not true but the offerings reflect that. Thanks for putting this out. Leonard

2008 Feb 07 05:26 PM