Neiman Marcus purchase by Saks parent creates high anxiety in Dallas fashion world

Neiman Marcus is the essence of Dallas’ fashion psyche.

Carrie Marcus Neiman, her husband Al Neiman, and her brother Herbert Marcus opened the first Neiman Marcus in downtown in 1907, and the business was an instant success — winning the hearts of Dallasites who wanted more than ordering goods from the Sears Roebuck catalog.

Stanley Marcus joined the family business 18 years later after graduating from Harvard University. He used lessons gleaned from his aunt Carrie to create a worldwide luxury retailing mecca that has survived three ownership changes in the past 20 years — including bankruptcy.

Now the proposed purchase of its parent company by the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue for $2.65 billion has created high anxiety in Dallas’ fashionista world.

The deal will end more than 115 years of Neiman Marcus being run from Dallas, most of that time as a global luxury leader.

Saks parent HBC finally put out a press release Thursday detailing the proposed transaction, saying it will create Saks Global, “a combination of world-class luxury retail and real estate assets, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks OFF 5TH, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, each of which will continue operations under their respective brands.”

Accent on “brands.”

That’s what concerns Neiman’s loyalists.

Just another brand?

Will Neiman Marcus become just another brand in HBC’s luxury lineup?

While the news release makes the case for why Neiman Marcus’ purchase makes economic sense, it also indicates a pecking order: “Saks Fifth Avenue is the leading name in luxury shopping.”

That’s certainly debatable, said Maria Halkias, The Dallas Morning News’ longtime retail reporter, who retired last month.

“Richard Baker, CEO of HBC, has lusted over Neiman Marcus for years,” said Halkias, who closely covered luxury retailing for 31 years.

The crux of the matter, she said, is whether HBC can put these fierce competitors under one corporate umbrella and keep their stores relevant at a time when luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Hermès continue to take an exponentially larger share of the market with their own stores and e-commerce.

Most worrisome is consumers might see a deterioration of the personalized service that sets Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman apart from its new owner, she said.

“Neiman Marcus,” she said, “is the reason there have been no full-line Saks Fifth Avenue stores in Dallas-Fort Worth for years and why Barneys New York came and left twice. Neiman’s NorthPark Center store is consistently the No. 1 volume store in the chain. Bergdorf Goodman is a juggernaut in Manhattan.”

In an exclusive interview with The News on Friday, Marc Metrick concurred with that assessment. The Saks Global CEO is poised to lead Neiman Marcus once the deal closes.

“You’re sitting in Dallas right now, and how many Saks Fifth Avenues are in that market?” Metrick said. “It’s a testament to the culture at Neiman Marcus that we could not pierce that market. There’s so much loyalty, and there’s so many dedicated folks and they love their Neiman’s there. It’s very exciting to be able to go in and to really think about, how can you expand on that, how can you build on that?”

Forgive folks here if they’re wary.

Lynchpin of Dallas’ fashion identity

Neiman Marcus has been the lynchpin of Dallas’ fashion identity that spawned NorthPark and the wholesale Apparel Mart, said Tracy Hayes, former fashion editor of The News.

“Sitting for a Gittings portrait [the official portrait studio of the Neiman Marcus brand], being married in a wedding gown from the downtown NM bridal salon, having a multi-generational Christmas lunch in the Zodiac Room — those were the rites of passage and markers of Dallas’ membership in Dallas’ high society,” Hayes said.

The cachet of being the newspaper’s representative in the city where Neiman’s planted its flagship and homebase guaranteed Hayes a front-row seat when she covered European runway collections in the 1980s and 1990s.

“The store was also the launchpad for a host of other people who went on to make their marks with other ventures that burnished Dallas’ image — from the Horchow Collection’s Roger Horchow to Brian Bolke with Forty Five Ten and the Conservatory,” she said.

“It’s almost impossible to imagine Dallas without Neiman Marcus.”

Family’s international legacy

Allison V. Smith, Stanley Marcus’ granddaughter, said the family’s international legacy will live on no matter who owns the company.

“Stanley and his aunt Carrie Marcus Neiman originated the annual Neiman Marcus Award in 1938,” said Smith, referring to the global prize that honors breakthrough talent in fashion from across the globe. “Later, Stanley created Neiman Marcus Fortnights [lavish multi-event celebrations themed after a specific country], bringing world-wide attention to Dallas, thus changing Dallasites’ perception of themselves and the city we live in.

“Through major acts of creativity and a laser focus on quality, they gave us the lasting gift of excellence.”

Kate Sheldon, CEO of Fashioneering LLC, has been associated with Neiman Marcus throughout her 34-year career — as a couture designer, a Neiman Marcus buyer and, most recently, as a consultant for clients who either do business with Neiman’s or aspire to.

“As a Texan, Neiman Marcus has been my sparkly touchstone throughout my life,” she said. “The days of working to scour the globe like truffle hunters to create the most beautifully unique assortments and experiences are long gone.”

‘End of an era’

The sale to Saks has deepened her angst.

“A lot of the specialness — Neiman Marcus’ special sauce — that remains is at risk,” she said. “We will all be armchair quarterbacking this situation for decades to come. I will be talking about this in the nursing home, I have no doubt.”

Sheldon said her colleagues knew in their guts the days of consolidation were probably in the wings. “But we really hoped we would be on the buying end,” she said. “No matter how you slice it, this is the end of an era.”

Lisa Dawson, president of Kim Dawson Agency Inc., says the modeling agency owes its existence to “Mr. Stanley,” as her mother Kim Dawson called him.

When her mother decided to return home to Texas after modeling in New York, the only modeling job in North Texas was at Neiman Marcus’ Zodiac Room.

“People were always complaining that they couldn’t get in touch with models,” Lisa Dawson recalled. “This was before cell phones, beepers or even answering machines.”

Her mom offered to organize the models and take a small percentage. Mr. Stanley thought that was a great idea. “Without Mr. Stanley’s help and encouragement, my mom might not have made that leap.”

Neiman Marcus was the agency’s first client, and 60 years later, it remains one of the agency’s largest.

Is this the end of an era?

She certainly hopes not.

Dawson worries about the possibility of Neiman’s being rolled into Saks. “If that happens, I assume that they would take a lot of the work that we do to New York. I don’t know that,” she said.

“Yeah, if we lost all that, it would be bad.”

She wonders what will happen to the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book and its fantasy items. “Even though very few people can afford to buy them, it’s always fun to see what they are,” she said.

“Neiman’s is not the store that it was when the family owned it, but it’s still a wonderful store and a great brand, so I would hate to see it go away. That would be really sad.”

Take a chill pill

Annette Becker, director and curator of the Texas Fashion Collection at the University of North Texas, says it’s time for people to take a chill pill.

“As the person who runs a fashion collection first started by Neiman Marcus in 1938, I see this as just one more step in its very long and rich history,” Becker said. “I’m honestly not worried about the brand. Because Neiman Marcus is such a storied institution, the name Neiman Marcus holds tremendous cultural capital and it will continue to hold its place in our society.”

Karen Katz, former CEO of Neiman Marcus Group, agrees and see this as another chapter in the iconic history of the retailer. “It has changed ownership at least half a dozen times since 1907, and it continues to live on,” said Katz, who stepped down from her post in January 2019.

Is it likely to become just another brand in HBC’s lineup?

“This is hard to predict,” she said, “but I believe Richard Baker understands the value of the Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman brands, how important the customers are to each of these brands, and the value of the NM and BG teams that serve the customer day in and day out.”

Here’s hoping he does.