Neiman Marcus

Neiman Marcus

File:Nieman's logo.PNG
Company type	Department store
Industry	Retail
Founded	1907
Headquarters	Dallas, Texas, USA
Products	Clothing, footwear, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics, and housewares.
Website	www.neimanmarcus.com

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 with such establishments as Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, and 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.

History

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

Herbert Marcus, Sr., a former buyer with Dallas' Sanger Bros. department store, had left his previous job to found a new business with his sister Carrie Marcus Neiman and her husband, A. L. Neiman, then employees of Sanger Brothers competitor A. Harris. In 1907 the trio found themselves with $25,000 from the successful sales-promotion firm they had built in Atlanta, Georgia, and two potential investments into which to invest the funds. Opting to reject the unknown "sugary soda pop business," the three entrepreneurs chose instead to return to Dallas to found a retail business rather than take a chance on the fledgling Coca-Cola company. For this reason, early company CEO Stanley Marcus was quoted in 1957 as saying in jest that Neiman Marcus was "founded on bad business judgment." Thus the store was established on September 10 1907.

In 1913, a fire destroyed the Neiman Marcus store and its merchandise. A temporary store was set up and opened in 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. The store staged a special show, "One Hundred Years of Texas Fashions," in 1936 in honor of the centennial of Texas' independence from Mexico. A 1957 profile of the store, "Neiman Marcus of Texas," described the "grandiose and elaborate" gala, noting, "It was on this occasion that one of the most critical among the store's guests, Mrs. Edna Woolman Chase, editor of Vogue, expressing the sentiment of the store's starry-eyed clientele, told the local press: 'I dreamed all my life of the perfect store for women. Then I saw Neiman-Marcus, and my dream came true.'"

I dreamed all my life of the perfect store for women. Then I saw Neiman-Marcus, and my dream came true.

— Edna Woolman Chase, editor of Vogue (1936), quoted in Commentary 1957

In the 1950s and '60s Gittings operated a portrait studio in Neiman Marcus. Clients included Lyndon Johnson,Howard Hughes,and the Shah of Iran,Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family.

In 1969, the first Neiman Marcus outside the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex opened in Houston as a freestanding store and became an anchor in the Houston Galleria in 1970. 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, Boston, and Las Vegas.

In the late 1990s, 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 shuttered. 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 January 22, 2002, Neiman Marcus and the worldwide fashion community mourned the death of Stanley Marcus, who had served as president and chairman of the board for the company. Marcus had been the architect behind many of the store's most famous innovations, including the fashion shows, New York advertising for a strictly regional chain, in-store art exhibitions, and the Christmas catalog with its outlandish His-and-Hers gifts, including vicuña coats, a pair of airplanes, "Noah's Ark" (including pairs of animals), camels, and live tigers.Long since retired from his chairmanship of the company, Stanley Marcus was nonetheless one of the last remaining ties to its original ownership.

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 2, 2005, Neiman Marcus Group was the subject of a leveraged buyout (LBO), selling itself to two private equity firms, Texas Pacific Group and Warburg Pincus.

Neiman Marcus today

Unlike many of its department-store contemporaries, Neiman Marcus is still in operation today under the original name and is still headquartered in the city where it began. The Neiman Marcus Group comprises 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. The company operates 38 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 20 Last Call clearance centers and 3 Horchow Finale Furniture Outlets. These store operations total more than 5 million square feet (500,000 m²) gross. Competitors in the luxury retail segment include Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor, and Barneys New York.

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 upscale home furnishings, linens, decorative accessories and tabletop items. They have also launched a new blog [(www.insite.neimanmarcus.com)] outlining the latest news in the fashion world and beyond.

Until recently, The Neiman Marcus Group owned majority interest in Kate Spade LLC, a manufacturer of handbags and accessories. In October 2006, the company purchased all minority interest for approximately $59.4 million, and in November 2006 sold 100% ownership to Liz Claiborne, Inc for approximately $121.5 million. Another recent divestiture was a majority interest in Gurwitch Products LLC, which manufactures Laura Mercier cosmetics, to Alticor Inc., for approximately $40.8 million.

Since 1987, Neiman Marcus has accepted merchandise transactions using only its proprietary store credit cards, American Express cards, cash or check for purchases in their retail stores. However, between fall 2005 and mid-2006, Neiman Marcus briefly tested 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 and the forthcoming expiration of the company's exclusive ten-year agreement with American Express later in 2007, some insiders say that the company may make the tested changes chainwide sometime in 2007.

According to the April 26, 2007 issue of The Wall Street Journal, Neiman Marcus is quietly testing a co-branded credit card issued by HSBC with some of their top customers. The card, which runs on the American Express network, will be rolled out on a wider basis later in 2007 or in early 2008. The five-year agreement Neiman Marcus has with HSBC does allow for such a card.

Since 1939, Neiman Marcus has issued an annual Christmas catalog, which gets much free publicity from the national media for a tradition of unusual and extravagant gifts not otherwise sold in its stores. Some have included the 'his and hers' themed item, trips and cars (see below), to name a few.

The showroom 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), Boston (Back Bay), Chicago (Michigan Avenue), Oak Brook (Oakbrook Center) and Minneapolis (Nicollet Mall).

Horchow Finale Stores

Horchow, a high-end furniture brand owned by Neiman Marcus, is sold in a limited number of Neiman Marcus locations. There are also Horchow Finale Stores, with three locations in Texas. Though Horchow items are also found in Neiman Marcus Last Call stores, the Horchow Finale stores focus on furniture & home items. The three Horchow Finale Stores are located in the Dallas, Texas area.

Neiman Marcus Last Call Clearance Centers

Neiman Marcus Last Call Clearance Centers is Neiman Marcus' version of an outlet store. They are featured around the United States at a small number of outlet centers, with many found in outlet centers operated by The Mills Corporation and Chelsea Premium Outlets. They range from 20,000 - 45,000 square feet of selling space and sell clearance women's & men's apparel, shoes, jewelry, accessories, furniture, & home accessories that were found in Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman stores along with the Horchow catalog. Neiman Marcus credit card holders can receive an additional 5% discount on Last Call Clearance Center purchases by using their Neiman Marcus card (other credit cards including American Express, MasterCard, and Visa are also accepted). Currently, there are 18 Last Call Clearance Centers in the US. The newest (19th) location has opened at the new Philadelphia Premium Outlets in Limerick, Pennsylvania.

Fantasy Gifts

In 1952, Stanley Marcus introduced a new tradition of having extravagant and unusual gifts in each year's Christmas catalog, The Christmas Book; the idea was sparked when journalist Edward R. Murrow contacted Marcus to ask if the store would be offering anything unusual that might interest his radio listeners; Marcus invented on the spot an offering of a live Black Angus bull accompanied by a sterling silver barbecue cart, subsequently altering the catalog to include his new idea, priced at $1,925.

Other Fantasy Gifts offered over the years:

pre-1965

• Toy tiger draped and decorated with diamonds and other precious stones — $1 million.
• Ermine bathrobe, $6,975.
• His and Her airplanes, matched pair — $176,000
• Chinese junk (advertised as "Junk for Christmas") — $11,700 shipped to the Port of Houston.

1964

• His and hers hot air balloons — $6,850

1965

• A gold toilet seat advertised as "a 24 kt. Gold plated throne"— $250
• Handspun lace handkerchief -- $300.
• Empress Chinchilla coat — $8,975.
• His and Her para-sails — $361 each.
• "The Pets' Cookbook" and chocolate scented rubber bone — $10.
• Man's western style hat — $250.
• Pine wood play wagon for children — $145.
• Video tape recorder and camera — $1,345.
• One 14-ounce tin of fresh caviar — $130 (flown fresh to customer on request)

1970

• Pleasure cruise along the Florida coast — $35,000 (sold to a Miami charitable organization that then offered tickets for $200-$1,000 donations)
• Lucite bathtub with aquarium — $5,000
• His and Her Thunderbird autos
• "For optimists": $10 live oak trees
• "For pessimists": a Noah's ark with all endangered species aboard — $588,247

(No arks were sold, but over 1,000 trees were purchased.)

pre-1972

• a truckload of pink air
• His and her mummy cases, $16,000 and guaranteed to be about 2,000 years old
• a "Freeway Fortress" combination car and tank, $845,300 (or 10% down and 36 installments of $24,192.49 per month)

1972

• $5 of candy pebbles in a jar
• an $8 set of worry beads
• a $250,000 bag of uncut diamonds
• a "privacy egg," 12' x 15', built by N-M in the area of the buyer's choice and stocked as the buyer prefers, $80,000

1974

• the "N-Bar-M Christmas Book Mouse Ranch," 12 square feet, "for anyone who ever dreamed of being a cattle baron in miniature": acrylic corrals and fences, silverplated "roundup tweezers," mesa, cacti, pastures, feed barn, watering tanks, feed bins, and a windmill (but no mice) — $3,500
• 106-carat polished black boulder opal — $150,000, not eligible for charge purchases
• Russian natural sable jacket, $12,000
• Nickel-plated penguin ice bucket handmade in Italy, $450 (UPI noted: "To make the bird feel at home, Neiman-Marcus will fill it with custom-chipped Antarctic ice, hand carried from the South Pole. Travel arrangements for the courier, including row boat and ice pick only $3,450.")
• A pair of 18th century wooden horse heads from India — $7,500
• An imperial sacrificial robe worn by a Chinese emperor, circa 1770 — $6,000
• A sterling silver thermometer case for doctors — $28 plus 4 weeks for monogramming
• Bronze spearheads from the Persian Wars (1500 to 700 B.C.E.) — $35

1975

• In honor of the U.S. bicentennial, autographed letters from George and Martha Washington, $8,500 for the set

2002

• Collection of paintings by Andy Warhol, "The Athlete's Series," $3,000,000
• Neiman Marcus Limited Edition 2004 Cadillac XLR, $85,000
• NM Limited Edition Burberry Taxi, $58,900
• "His and Her" Personalized Action Figures, $7,500

2003

• His and Hers Robots, $400,000
• NM Limited-Edition BMW 645Ci Coupe, $75,170
• Luxury Ice Fishing House, starts at $27,000
• Mermaid suit, comes with a mermaid tail, faux pearl top, and swimming lessons, $10,000
• 44 carat diamond ring, yellow diamond, can be inscribed with up to 2,000 characters, $800,000
• Bombardier Lear Jets, $7,737,000 to $12,743-000

2004

• Limited-Edition Maserati Quattroporte, $125,000
• Custom suit of armor, $20,000
• Modern Zeppelin NT, $10,000,000
• Grand Ole Opry Experience, $25,000
• NM Las Vegas Trike, $65,000
• Underwater Aviator, $1,700,000
• Haute Couture Valentino Gown, $325,000

2005

• Private concert with Elton John, $1.5 million
• IndyCar Series Simulator, $65,000 to $75,000
• Collection of Jewels with eight significant pieces of jewelry spanning the last three centuries, $1.2 million
• Dreamboat Limited-Edition Levitating Sculpture, $18,000 to $90,000
• NM Limited-Edition 2007 Lexus GS 450h, $65,000
• His & Hers Custom Photobooth, $20,000
• Grand Empire Railroad, $200,000
• Skycar Prototype, $3.5 million
• Tree Sculpture (an adult treehouse), $50,000

2006

• Virgin Galactic Charter to Space, $1.7 million
• Pencil Skyscraper by The Art Guys, $6,000 or $40,000
• His and Hers Twike Communicator Vehicle (Zero emission electric car system), $40,000
• GC Quad, $56,465
• Membership at The Club at Castilignon del Bosco, $3.8 million
• Jacques Fath Archives, $3.5 million
• Limited edition pet homes, $5,000 and $7,000
• Backyard Water Park, starts at $100,000
• All-Star Sports Celebrity Dream Package: Charity Auction, starts at $250,000
• Limited-Edition 2007 BMW M6 Convertible, $139,000

Other notable Christmas gifts

In 1961 Neiman-Marcus in Dallas was one of two stores in the nation — the other being Wanamaker's in Philadelphia — to offer computer-based assistance in selecting Christmas gifts. The process worked by comparing information on the recipient to a computerized list of the 2,200 items available at Neiman-Marcus, then providing a printout of the 10 best suggestions. One person testing the computer filled out the questionnaire as if he were President John F. Kennedy shopping for gifts in excess of $1,000 for his wife, Jacqueline; the computer suggested a yacht.

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 Marcus driver in a Rolls-Royce car. The coat was wrapped in royal 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."

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

1997 Ducati 748L

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)Crystalline Ice Exclusive Exterior color.

2006 BMW M6Convertible only, Exclusive color was Ruby Black Exterior with Piano Black accents.

2007 Lexus LS600hL (100 to commemorate the Centennial of Neiman Marcus. Exclusive Exterior color is Truffle Mica.)

Criticism

Due to the high prices of much of its upscale merchandise, Neiman Marcus is sometimes called "Needless Markup."

Some animal-rights activists claim that Neiman Marcus' fur sales contribute to the unnecessary 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.

Neiman Marcus in popular culture

Urban legend: The $250 cookie recipe

The store is featured in an urban legend involving a supposed recipe for its popular chocolate chip cookie. In the legend, a woman and her daughter enjoy a cookie while shopping at Neiman Marcus in Dallas, Texas, and ask for the recipe. The waiter informs her there will be a "two-fifty" charge, which the woman interprets as a modest $2.50. Upon receiving her VISA statement, she is shocked to discover she has been charged $250.00 instead. In revenge, she photocopies the recipe and urges her friends to distribute it for free to everyone they know so that the store will make no further profit on its sale. Because the story typically was passed along as a photocopy, it falls in the legend subcategory of Xeroxlore.

Folklorists have pointed out three chief holes in the story: (1) Neiman Marcus does not accept Visa for any in-store purchase (although Visa is accepted for online purchases through the company's website); (2) prior to the emergence of the legend, the store did not have a chocolate chip cookie; and (3) a similar story has been around since the 1940s, originally involving a red velvet cake recipe from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. It wasn't until the 1980s that the story's focus shifted to cookies. (The cookie version of the story originally was attached to Mrs. Fields cookies, causing that company eventually to post disavowals of the notices at all its stores.) Although the story is untrue, Neiman Marcus nonetheless posted a cookie recipe on its web site to quell rumors.

Popular media

Neiman Marcus' international notoriety has led to its inclusion in many popular media. Television sitcoms can quickly convey someone's wealth by making the character a Neiman-Marcus shopper, as was done with Blair Warner of the 1980s sitcom The Facts of Life. Similarly, in an episode of A Different World in which the well-to-do Whitley Gilbert must return all her credit cards to her father, she is especially loath to give up her Neiman's card and reminisces wistfully over past N-M purchases. The store was mentioned widely on the show Dharma and Greg as being a source for the upscale mother's clothes; moreover, the family's pair of Rottweilers are named Neiman and Marcus. A character on the TV series Gilmore Girls compares his ordinary measuring tape to that of the haughty matriarch, Emily Gilmore, telling her daughter: "Your mother got hers at Neiman Marcus. It’s platinum with gold leaf — it costs more than my car!". Hilary Banks in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air also frequented Neiman's.

The store is mentioned in a number of minor ways in other media. It is said that the shopping scenes from Blu Cantrell's "Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)" were filmed at a Neiman Marcus store, and the lyrics mention shopping at Neiman-Marcus after discovering her boyfriend/husband cheating on her. The computer game NetHack involves a buried joke in which the player is told, "You hear Neiman and Marcus arguing" while hallucinating on a game level that includes a shop. American parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic released a song entitled "I'll Sue Ya" on his album Straight Outta Lynwood that satirizes America's fame for frivolous lawsuits; in the song, the singer jokes about various lawsuits he has filed, including suing Neiman Marcus because they "put up their Christmas decorations way out of season."

The chain is also mentioned in the Steve Martin and John Candy comedy film Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. When Martin's character is going over his credit cards, after he and Candy's character have been robbed, he remarks "And, I've got a Neiman-Marcus card in case we want to buy a gift for somebody."

In the song "Emotionless" off of rapper Jim Jones' album, Hustler's P.O.M.E. (Product of My Environment) mentions Neiman Marcus in his line: "Neiman Marcus I'm in it, shopping and, $5,000 spent on pants, man."

Store locations

Neiman Marcus currently has stores in Arizona, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia.

Archives

The "Neiman-Marcus Collection," comprising early account books, advertising and Christmas Catalog layouts, files on charity activities, past awards and presentations, and a collection of Stanley Marcus's personal memorabilia, among many other items, is located in the Texas & Dallas History & Archives Division, 7th Floor, Main Library, Dallas Public Library, where it may be consulted by researchers.

External links

• Neiman Marcus
• Neiman Marcus Group
• Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe