In the mid-1900s, Lord & Taylor was an American success story. What started as a small dry goods store in New York evolved into a luxury fashion destination that defined what women wore. Three-quarters of a century later, all that’s left of Lord & Taylor are memories and an unfinished website.
So, what happened to Lord & Taylor? How did a brand that shaped retail disappear from people’s minds so quickly? Let’s look at the dramatic rise and fall of Lord & Taylor, and speculate on what lies ahead for this once-iconic fashion brand.
The making of Lord & Taylor
Lord & Taylor began in 1826 when Samuel Lord and George Washington Taylor opened a tiny shop on the lower east side of Manhattan. By the late 1800s, the shop had evolved into a full department store. Various sources cite Lord & Taylor as the oldest department store in the U.S., but it was not the first of its kind. According to the Smithsonian, that title belongs to the Marble Palace — opened in 1848 on 280 Broadway in New York by Irishman Alexander Stewart. Lord & Taylor followed the lead of Marble Palace, opening its first flagship store on Broadway in 1859. Other stores followed, creating shopping districts that would shape New York’s culture for the rest of time.
Lord & Taylor became an anchor store to an area known as Ladies Mile. The store enjoyed continued success for several decades, but fell into hard times after the Panic of 1873. A loan from retired partners kept the business afloat.
In 1904, the company’s president Edward Hatch took Lord & Taylor public. United Dry Goods Company bought Lord & Taylor in 1910.
Even as the Lord & Taylor’s ownership evolved, the company continued its path of expansion by opening an opulent flagship location in 1914 on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The building, styled in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, featured conveyor belts — a cutting edge innovation in those days — plus services catering to men. The store’s entire fourth floor carried menswear and related goods. A selling point was the men’s-only entrance that allowed guys to shop without setting eyes on any product intended for women.
According to a Landmark Preservation Commission document, Architecture magazine described Lord & Taylor’s Fifth Avenue building as the “best of its class” and “a gift and a benefit” to the city.
Holiday window displays
The Fifth Avenue store featured a dramatic two-story entrance, with large display windows on either side. Lord & Taylor used those display areas to set up animated scenes during the holidays. Those lively holiday displays became a destination and a core piece of the brand’s identity.
Fashion destination
In 1946, Dorothy Shaver was hired as president of Lord & Taylor. Shaver was the first woman to lead a major department store. Shaver transitioned Lord & Taylor into a true luxury fashion destination — while continuing to attract Manhattan foot traffic with dazzling holiday displays at the Fifth Avenue flagship store. She shut down the store’s furnishings and home collections in favor of dresses and career wear. She also opened new stores to expand the brand’s audience.
When Shaver passed away in 1959, she had laid the foundation for continued growth. The brand expanded into Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas in the 1970s. In the 1980s, Lord & Taylor kept the brand momentum going with celebrity collaborations — one with Sophia Loren — and special collections for Broadway plays.
In 1986, May Department Stores purchased Lord & Taylor, converting many May Company stores into Lord & Taylor destinations.
Scandal and ownership changes
By the 1990s, Lord & Taylor’s star power began to fade. The brand’s reputation took a hard hit in 2000 when security guards in a Michigan store put shopper Frederick Finley in a choke hold after accusing him of shoplifting. Finley died from his injuries.
Macy’s — then known as Federated Department Stores — bought May Company including the Lord & Taylor brand in 2005. The next year, Macy’s sold Lord & Taylor to NRDC Equity Partners. A few years later, NRDC purchased Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), which owned Saks Fifth Avenue. NRDC moved the Lord & Taylor brand into the HBC portfolio.
Changing times
Ultimately, changing consumer preferences solidified the end of Lord & Taylor. Stores like the Gap and Zara resonated with young shoppers who prioritized casual and affordable clothes over stuffy luxury. Lord & Taylor became an outdated relic, struggling to capture shoppers’ attention.
In 2017, Lord & Taylor sold its famous flagship building to WeWork for $850 million. The store closed in 2019.
Enter Le Tote
In 2019, HBC sold Lord & Taylor to fashion rental startup Le Tote for $100 million. The plan was to create synergies for both brands by mixing regular retail with fashion rentals. The leaders at Le Tote believed they could use their data expertise and technology to revive the Lord & Taylor brand. Success in the stores could then be leveraged to attract new subscribers to Le Tote.
The plan failed.
Just months later, a global pandemic would annihilate mall traffic and temporarily halt demand for women’s career wear. In August 2020, Lord & Taylor and Le Tote filed for bankruptcy. There were a few dozen Lord & Taylor stores remaining at that time, and all were closed in 2021. Le Tote’s CEO later admitted they didn’t realize how tough it would be to mix online and physical shopping.
Read next: What happened to Le Tote?
An uncertain future
In 2021, Saadia Group bought the assets of Lord & Taylor and Le Tote for $12 million, relaunching the department store brand as an ecommerce shop. This effort also failed. Three years later, Saadia Group defaulted on its bank loans and the Le Tote and Lord & Taylor websites eventually disappeared.
Regal Brands Global subsequently bought the Lord & Taylor name from Saadia Group. Under the leadership of Chief Brand Strategy Officer Sina Yenel, Regal Brands Global plans to relaunch Lord & Taylor as an online outlet for discount luxury apparel, plus a less expensive collection aimed at Gen Z shoppers.
Yenel says the site will go live in 2025, but it currently loads as a blank page that asks for a password.
Lord & Taylor’s return to glory
Will Lord & Taylor’s next reboot be the one that sticks? I would love to see it happen, but a resurgence for this brand seems unlikely. The Lord & Taylor name has no clout with anyone under the age of 50, and there is fierce competition in the discount luxury space. The collections must hit home with the target audiences quickly and the marketing must be impactful and memorable. Those are big objectives to realize under the weight of stiff competition in the women’s ecommerce fashion space.
