IN BERGDORF GOODMANS HANDS: THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN LUXURY

As Fifth Avenue’s golden age fades, one department store remains a beacon of the aspiration that built American fashion. Can Bergdorf Goodman preserve the dream — and redefine luxury for a new generation?

Stretching from Washington Square Park to Harlem, Fifth Avenue has long stood as New York City’s most storied runway — a corridor where fashion, fantasy, and fortune have walked side by side for more than a century. For decades, its grand luxury department stores were the heartbeat of the avenue, drawing crowds who came not just to shop, but to experience the magic of fashion itself.

But even icons aren’t immune to time. The grandeur that once defined Fifth Avenue began to crack under the weight of modern retail — changing consumer habits, rising rents, and the quiet, steady pull of online shopping.

Of the first to fall was Barneys New York, filing for bankruptcy in 2019 and closing its doors the following year — a warning shot heard all the way down Fifth Avenue. Then, in early 2025, according to fourth-quarter financial disclosures, Saks Fifth Avenue began to show signs of instability, with CEO Marc Metrick acknowledging an 18-month backlog of unpaid balances and pledging to reconcile supplier payments through phased monthly installments.

Now, as reports surface that Saks Global — which holds a 49 percent stake in Bergdorf Goodman — is seeking to sell its share, all eyes have turned toward Fifth Avenue’s crown jewel. Standing almost alone, the last great department store anchoring a street that once defined American luxury, Bergdorf faces the question that looms over retail itself: Can it preserve the magic of luxury shopping while adapting to the new world order of commerce?

For Bergdorf, the answer may lie in the very values that made it legendary — and perhaps the reason it endures when so many have vanished. Shopping at Bergdorf’s was never just shopping; it was a ritual of aspiration. There was something singular about the crossroads of 58th Street and Fifth Avenue — an energy other department stores could imitate but never capture. While their magic came and went with the seasons, Bergdorf’s allure was built on something deeper: the promise of who you might become once you stepped inside.

That promise extended both ways — between customer and creator alike. “If your clothes are not at that place, there’s no future. There’s no future for those clothes,” recalls designer Isaac Mizrahi, whose collection first debuted at the storied department store in 1986. Bergdorf Goodman wasn’t simply a store; it was a stage for possibility. Designers knew that a spot on its racks wasn’t just shelf space; it was validation — entry into fashion’s highest echelon. “A lot of stores would say, ‘Oh, that’s so expensive — can you do it at a better price point?’” remembered Alice + Olivia founder Stacey Bendet Eisner. “Bergdorf’s buyer and customer were always kind of like, bring it on! Colored fur, crazy embellishment, more sequins — they’d go for it.”

While neighboring Fifth Avenue department stores urged designers to chase accessibility, Bergdorf Goodman remained devoted to aspiration. Where others asked for compromise, Bergdorf asked for courage. It encouraged fashion that was unapologetically ambitious — created for the woman who dreamed in couture and saw clothing as transformation, not transaction. It had no interest in broadening its market; its exclusivity was the market. Bergdorf didn’t chase aspiration — it defined it.

For years, the shimmer of Fifth Avenue blurred the line between those chasing luxury and those defining it. From the outside, they all sparkled alike — same marble facades, same designer names, the same choreography of excess. But behind the displays, their pursuits had begun to diverge. Bergdorf remained guided by craftsmanship and restraint, while others leaned into the chase for scale — courting broader markets through collaborations, lower price points, and faster cycles of production. What looked like shared success was, in truth, a widening gap. The cracks were there — hairline at first, then widening.

When the pandemic hit in 2019, those cracks became canyons. Fifth Avenue — once alive with taxis, tourists, and the quiet theater of window displays — fell silent, its glitter fading into the stillness. As storefronts closed and fitting rooms went dark, the glow of Fifth Avenue was replaced by the light of laptop screens, and shopping moved online.

But the shift online didn’t glitter the same way. Soon after, reports of counterfeit handbags, delayed refunds, and impersonal service began to surface, revealing just how poorly aspiration translated through a screen. Retailers blamed the market — the changing customer, the impossibility of replicating an in-store experience online. But perhaps it wasn’t the platform that failed them. No longer able to hide behind the glow of Fifth Avenue, the retail luxury department stores were laid bare — stripped to their nuts and bolts, revealing which values were built to last. Technology didn’t break them; it simply exposed what was already fragile: the erosion of exclusivity.

Long before e-commerce took center stage, many of these Fifth Avenue landmarks had already begun to drift from their purpose. They traded rarity for reach, aspiration for access. Chasing trends and celebrity collaborations, they mistook visibility for influence and audience for allure. In trying to be for everyone, they stopped being extraordinary. And when the market changed, their foundations cracked. The stores that once defined craftsmanship, curation, and taste had flattened their own magic — and when the lights of Fifth Avenue dimmed, there was nothing left to hold the gaze.

As Bergdorf Goodman looks to the future, it seems intent on preserving not just a legacy, but a feeling — that unmistakable hum of aspiration that once defined Fifth Avenue itself. “We are in the business of selling incredible artisanship and craft,” said Darcy Penick, the store’s president. “In the store, that comes to life in an inspiring, tactile way. Digitally, that brand-led experience must come through the site to inspire and excite.” Bergdorf’s challenge — and perhaps its triumph — lies in translating that intimacy for a global audience. No longer limited to the marble floors of Midtown, the Bergdorf experience can now exist in the hands of anyone who seeks it. And maybe that’s the evolution luxury needed all along: not dilution, but distillation — where aspiration endures, even beyond the walls of Fifth Avenue.