Nostalgic Retail Series #8 - BARNEYS NEW YORK

Founded in 1923 by Barney Pressman, the luxury department store and its iconic brand began to lose its luster as department stores experienced declines in the last several years and were further impacted by the pandemic. The company dropped the apostrophe in Barney's in 1981 and became Barneys.

Barneys introduced many significant luxury brands to the United States, including Armani, Christian Louboutin, and Zegna. [Wikipedia]

Barneys New York filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2019 and closed 15 of its 22 stores, including flagship stores in Las Vegas, Chicago, and Seattle.

On 25 October 2019, Authentic Brands Group announced it had won the bidding process ($271.4 million bid). Authentic Brands Group said it would close all seven remaining Barneys stores and license the retailer's intellectual property to Saks Fifth Avenue. The New York Times reported that Authentic Brands Group's strategy is "essentially betting that the future of retail lies with the abstract values of brand names rather than in-person shopping experiences." [Wikipedia]

In early 2021, Saks Fifth Avenue opened a Barneys at Saks store within a store in Connecticut. The brand also still lives on in Japan.

Today, if you go to the Barney's website, you are redirected to the Saks Fifth Avenue website which has recently secured new investment into the ecommerce portion of the business.