During the golden age of the department store, Lord & Taylor was considered one of the most elegant places to shop in Manhattan. Ladies lunched at the Bird Cage restaurant and tea room, while men dined at the Soup Bar. In 1945, Dorothy Shaver became the president of the store as well as the first woman in the U.S. to head a multi-million dollar company. She’s credited with the store’s nationwide expansion and cementing its role in high fashion. Then, of course, there were the famous holiday window displays, which were considered the very first to put on a show for passersby.
However, as online shopping took hold, Lord & Taylor suffered a fate similar to that of other department stores. By 2020, Lord & Taylor had announced that it would be going out of business and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But now, Lord & Taylor’s new owners are undertaking a comeback plan that includes a revamped digital shopping experience and the possibility of a brick-and-mortar presence.
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The rise and fall of Lord & Taylor
Lord & Taylor first opened in New York City as a dry goods store in 1826, relocating to its famous Fifth Avenue flagship location in 1914. When it closed in 2020, it was considered the oldest department store in the U.S.
The beginning of the end began back in 2006 when Canadian real estate investor Richard Baker took over the brand. At first, he seemed to revitalize the store, eventually folding it into his Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in 2012, along with Saks Fifth Avenue.
But by 2017, it was clear that Lord & Taylor’s financial situation was precarious, as HBC announced plans to sell its flagship building to WeWork for $850 million.
“Exiting this iconic space reflects Lord & Taylor’s increasing focus on its digital opportunity and HBC’s commitment to improving profitability,” an HBC spokesperson said at the time, as 6sqft reported.
Then, in 2019, HBC sold Lord & Taylor to Le Tote, Inc., which filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and announced plans to close all of the remaining 38 stores.
“While we are still entertaining various opportunities, we believe it is prudent to simultaneously put the remainder of the stores into liquidation to maximize value of inventory for the estate while pursuing options for the Company’s brands,” Ed Kremer, the company’s chief restructuring officer said in a statement at the time.
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Lord & Taylor first launched an e-commerce business in 2022.
Yet another new owner, The Saadia Group, took over Lord & Taylor in 2021, relaunching the store online, as Best Lifepreviously reported. The idea was to offer shoppers “accessible luxury” in women’s, men’s, and kids’ clothing, as well as housewares.
In an effort to create a shopping destination with a “global view” and “modern” and “elevated” inventory, the owners also decided to switch up Lord & Taylor’s classic script logo with a contemporary Helvetica font.
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But now it’s going back to its roots.
In September, Regal Brands Global took over ownership of Lord & Taylor and has now announced plans to relaunch and rebrand the website in 2025.
Their first order of business is reinstating the department store’s original “sweeping cursive logo,” reports Retail Dive.
In a conference call with the outlet, Regal Brands Global’s chief strategy officer Sina Yenel said the previous logo replacement was “the biggest betrayal of the brand.”
He continued, “I understand going after young customers, but this is not a startup. This is a brand that’s been out here for 198 years. Lord & Taylor has such a huge profile, among different generations and different cultures.”
That said, Forbes reports that the new Lord & Taylor website will feature categories for designer and luxury brands, Lord & Taylor-branded merchandise, and a Gen-Z-centric shop with more affordable price points.
Though there are conflicting reports about whether or not the store will eventually have a physical footprint, Retail Dive shares that, based on their call with Yenel, “because Lord & Taylor is employing a licensing model, brick-and-mortar opportunities like shop-in-shops and pop-ups could happen sooner.”
Additionally, Business of Fashion had their own conversation with Yenel, who said, “We’re leaving the brick-and-mortar game to those big players who are already on the market,” but added that he hopes to place Lord & Taylor-branded items in existing high-end stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom.