Word: store
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...tailoring reputation grew (Bergdorf retired in 1903), he added new lines of furs, dresses and accessories. But his real success was based on a personal touch. A man came in to buy a coat for his wife, tried in vain to describe her proportions-until he spotted the store's 6 ft. 175 Ib. owner. "That's her size," said he. Goodman donned a mink, paraded around the store, and made the sale...
...such personalized service grew a selling system rarely found in U.S. retailing. At Bergdorf's, a big customer does not wander haphazardly from one salesgirl to the next: she is accompanied everywhere in the store by a "vendeuse" who knows and has memorized her tastes. Bergdorf's vendeuses are sometimes as well known as their customers (on Bergdorf's payroll now: Mrs. Geoffrey Gates, the ex-Mrs. Harry Hopkins, Author Kay -Eisenhower Was My Boss-Summers-by) and sometimes too hoity-toity even for Bergdorf's. When the Grand Duchess
Doggy Hats. A Bergdorf customer is an unpredictable creature, especially when she reaches the rarefied air of the fourth floor, the store's famed custom department where evening dresses start at $495 and suits can be bought for as much as $1,000. There, Bergdorf's own stable of crack designers turn out more than 1,500 original models of hats ($52.50 and up) and dresses (up to $1,750) which have little trouble competing with the clothes of Dior, Path, Balenciaga, etc., which the store also sells...
Bergdorf vendeuses are well paid for their harrowing jobs (up to $15,000 a year in commissions). One rich buyer, who used to spend more than $100,000 a year in the store, would make the rounds after a shopping tour handing out $8,000 in tips. But recently such big spenders have become more rare, and are not always up to past Bergdorf standards. Once a shabby old woman came in to price a sable coat, was told that it would cost $45,000. She reached into her stocking, produced the cash, and walked out wearing the coat...
...Have Trouble." Bergdorf's special service (and the countless fittings, alterations, etc. that go with it) is so expensive that the store loses money on its custom-made department. Says Chairman Edwin's son Andrew, who last week moved up to the presidency: "Our custom department did better last year; it only lost $68,000 on a $1,000,000 volume." But what Bergdorf's loses on its custom goods is more than made up for by its profitable ready-to-wear department, where dresses are peddled for as little as $30. The store's biggest...