We all know so much about the dramas of the 20th century, from the one that ended with the Treaty of Versailles to the one that ended with our parents’ divorce. Less familiar, but no less intense, were a handful of dramas that took place in three department stores in Midtown Manhattan, where a trio of remarkable women broke with tradition and took the helms of landmark stores: Bonwit Teller, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel. In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion, Julie Satow tells their stories. Through them, Satow also charts the discovery of American designers, the birth of ready-to-wear, and the rise and fall of the department store as the palace of American retail.
The grand department store was a French idea. In 1838, Le Bon Marché opened in Paris with stained-glass ceilings and sweeping staircases. The concept jumped the Atlantic in 1862 when the world’s largest, most opulent store opened in Lower Manhattan. The Palace dealt in such luxe that in a single summer First Lady and compulsive shopper Mary Todd Lincoln’s bill came to half a million of today’s dollars. As other department stores sprang up, customers flocked to emporiums where they could buy clothes, bed linens, pianos, porcelain, and pets all under a single, soaring roof.
