Established in 1895 as a millinery shop on 9th Street in the Greenwich Village, Henri Bendel, named after its founder, developed an identity as a store with refined sense of fashion.[1] After a gradual series of moves uptown, in 1912 the store settled in a townhouse at 10 West 57th Street, where it would remain until the late 1980s. Like many New York (and American) specialty stores at that time, Bendel’s offered Paris copies and its own derivatives, and the store’s couture department was known as one of the best in the city.[2] However, after the Second World War, Bendel’s experienced financial hardship and lost some of its sterling reputation. This brought the store to the attention of the Genesco Shoe Company, a conglomerate who owned I. Miller Shoes and had begun acquiring other women’s specialty stores, including New York’s Bonwit Teller. They added Bendel’s to their portfolio in 1957.
Though briefly managed by Genesco Chairman Maxey Jarman, Jarman soon took the bold move of naming Geraldine Stutz as president of the store, at a time when female leadership was largely absent at the executive level. Stutz had been vice-president of the I. Miller division and though she had limited experience in retailing, she had successfully resuscitated I. Miller’s image.[3] Jarman decided that the Bendel’s turnaround required drastic measures and installed Stutz at the helm of Bendel’s with free reign to reform the store as she saw fit. Under Stutz’s leadership, Bendel’s became a store to watch, introducing numerous merchandising concepts that impacted the fashion industry, in particular the “Street of Shops”, which opened in 1959.[4] Designer specific boutiques within the store were added in 1965, another practice that was widely applied in retailing. Stutz and her staff of 100 created a unique and exciting environment at Bendel’s, renowned for its lavish décor and carefully curated lifestyle products.[5] The store became well known for introducing many European ready-to-wear designers to the American market, as well as cultivating local talent. Designers promoted by Bendel’s included Stephen Burrows, Sonia Rykiel, Jean Muir, Mary McFadden, Jean Charles de Castelbajac, and Ralph Lauren, among many others. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bendel’s was envied by its competitors and became a destination for wealthy New Yorkers, elite visitors and celebrities.[6]
Although few images remain of the interior of the store, written and oral accounts provide valuable insight into its organization. The Bendel’s townhouse was comprised of ten floors, the lower six being occupied by merchandise, and the upper floors devoted to administrative offices and an in-house design studio. The first floor of the store featured the famous Street of Shops. Confronted with a challenging space to merchandise, Stutz, in collaboration with architect H. McKim Glazebrook, transformed the narrow yet cavernous space into a series of twelve small shops with a main street running down the middle and connecting alleyways snaking between the boutiques. While many of the shops changed over the years, longstanding boutiques included Scentiments (for perfumes and soaps), Shoe Biz, The Leg Shop (for luxury hosiery), Frank Macintosh (for homeware) and the Gilded Cage (for cosmetics). The next four floors moved through various fashion departments, beginning with eveningwear in Bendel’s Fancy and the Fur Department on the second floor. Bendel’s Cachet, the sportswear department, occupied the third floor, while Savvy on the fourth floor catered to the younger female customer. The fifth floor featured lingerie and bridal in the Bendel’s Arcade, and the sixth floor was home to a beauty salon from 1965 until the late 1970s.
In 1980, Stutz bought Bendel’s from Genesco, becoming the first woman to own a major New York fashion store.[7] Five years later, she sold the business to The Limited, a retail conglomerate directed by Leslie Wexner. Wexner’s team began a process of modernizing the store, which ultimately led to closing the 57th Street shop and relocating around the corner in a new flagship location at 712 Fifth Avenue, where it remains today.
[1] Robert Hendrickson, The Grand Emporiums: The Illustrated History of America’s Great Department Stores, (New York: Stein and Day, 1979), 168.[2] Caroline Rennolds Milbank, New York Fashion: The Evolution of American Style, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989), 62, 172.
[3] Judith Leavitt, “Stutz, Geraldine Veronica,” in American Women Managers and Administrators, (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985), 260
[4] Roslyn Lacks,“Geraldine Stutz: She Minds the Store,” in Women Making History: Conversations with Fifteen New Yorkers, edited by Maxine Gold, (New York: New York City Commission on the Status of Women, 1985), 137.
[5] Robert Rufino, interview by Lauren Sagadore and Hazel Clark, June 12, 2014, transcript.
[6] Ira Neimark, The Rise of Fashion and Lessons Learned at Bergdorf Goodman, (New York: Fairchild Books, 2011), 191.
[7] Richard Stevenson, “Limited Expected to Acquire Bendel,”The New York Times, Oct. 19th, 1985.