- US.20181109-016
- Corporate body
- 1861 (date of establishment)
Bloomingdale's began in 1861 as a hoop-skirt shop run by brothers Joseph and Lyman G. Bloomingdale on the lower east side of Manhattan. Eventually moving to its current location at 59th and Lexington in 1886, the store is now an upscale department store featuring men and women's ready-to-wear, furnishings, accessories, jewelry, and cosmetics. This interview takes place at the beginning of a period of drastic change at Bloomingdale's, including extremely high employee turnover, changes in ownership, and the effects of an overall retail slump at the end of the 1980s. After over a decade of major promotional activity at Bloomingdale's, the financial year and a half after this interview, in May 1988, Campeau Corporation bought Bloomingdale's parent company, Federated Department Stores in a highly publicized and notorious leverage buyout. It is interesting to note that at the time of this interview, Bloomingdale's President Marvin S. Traub was soon to receive the "Person Who Makes the Difference" award from FIT, even as the department store was heading into serious financial troubles. Saks Fifth Avenue found itself in a similar position when it received the same award four years later amidst its highly publicized sale.