Legendary Neiman Marcus Tastemaker Turns 90 : Retail: Stanley Marcus, who was with the family chain for almost 50 years, may represent the last bastion of the day of the Merchant Prince.
Stanley Marcus is not angry. Rather, the chairman emeritus of Neiman Marcus explains in the gentle tone of a disappointed grandfather why he’s writing a letter to the maker of his $195 dress shirt.
To Marcus’ discerning eye, the custom-made cotton British shirt--an apparently impeccable lavender Prince of Wales plaid, subtly striped in yellow, blue and green--arrived flawed. It had too many loose threads, including some not trimmed from the machine-made buttonholes.
Marcus has spent a lifetime purveying perfection. And he knows the shirtmaker can do better.
“Maybe it’s my age that makes me very conscious of loose threads,” he says with a chuckle, “but I don’t think that’s an earmark of a fine product. And whenever I have a deep-seated feeling like that, I convey it to the person who made it. Sometimes they curse me, and sometimes they thank me.
“If you demand the best, sometimes you get it.”
Marcus is celebrating 90 years of demanding the best. He marked his birthday, April 20, with a series of events including a fete at his old store for “1,500 of my closest friends.”
Marcus, described by D Magazine as the conscience of Dallas during the past half-century, is an arts patron, activist, newspaper columnist and author. He has received numerous international awards and honors.
But his chief fame comes from Neiman Marcus, the store founded in 1907 by his father, aunt and uncle. In fact, retailing analysts say, Marcus represents the last bastion of the day of the Merchant Prince.
“The era has passed him by, and very few people in the ‘90s have come along to fulfill the unique niche that he carved for himself as far as class retailing is concerned--not mass, class,” said Alan Millstein, editor and publisher of Fashion Network Report, a newsletter for retailers.
Marcus worked at Neiman Marcus from 1926 until 1975, including more than 20 years as chairman and chief executive officer.
He helped create from whole cloth the oil-fueled hunger for glamour that began in Dallas, then a dusty town of 80,000, and that grew to great heights of glitz.
“I’m lucky that I was in retailing during the time that I call the golden age of retailing,” Marcus said in an interview.
Renowned for its service, the store is credited with pioneering personalized Christmas gift wrapping for customers in 1928; creating the first weekly retail fashion show in the country in the late ‘20s; and holding its fabled Fortnights, lavish showcases of foreign merchandise that began in 1957.
Marcus is “the foremost innovative retailer of the 20th Century, in my opinion,” analyst Millstein said.
“He transcended the store by the power of his imagination, and his greatest strengths were probably in the area of self-promotion and advertising,” Millstein said.
“He perfected hype in U.S. retailing.”
And yet, analysts say, while Marcus has outlived his great competitors--Adam Gimbel, Andrew Goodman, Grover Magnin--the luxurious age he epitomized has disappeared.
“I think Stanley Marcus has made remarkable contributions to the field of retailing,” said Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard’s Retail Consulting Group. But, he said, “Economically and demographically, this is a world quite different from the world Mr. Marcus so successfully helped to shape.”
Competition is tougher, and Millstein said the trends toward mergers and malls have virtually wiped out innovation in specialty retailing.
“It’s a lot different and a lot harder when you’re selling fantasy and you’re selling wishes and dreams and hope, rather than things with intrinsic value,” he said.
But Marcus, who’s known as Mr. Stanley, does understand that retailing is more than just luxurious merchandise--it means that serving the customer is the retailer’s ultimate goal. Today, he said, sales people need more education and better technique because customers have more money but are unwilling to stand for inefficiency.
“As goods become more standardized--and mass production has that effect, standardizing product--the distinguishing factor between one store and another is going to be how skillful stores are in satisfying customers and making it a pleasant experience instead of a hostile experience,” he said.
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Dallas-based Neiman Marcus was merged with Carter Hawley Hale Stores Inc. in 1968 and spun off in 1987. Now a 27-store chain, Neiman Marcus is a division of the Neiman Marcus Group, based in Chestnut Hill, Mass., and majority owned by Harcourt General Inc.
Although no longer at the store, Marcus still travels, gives speeches and advises a handful of clients -- who have included Mohamed al-Fayed, owner of Harrods department store in London--on problems of design, marketing, customer service and taste.
He also recently has become involved in a new business called Narrowcasting, in which he markets direct mail to affluent customers along with partner and former socialite Carole Collins Sweet.
“What she was doing with a database was something that I’d been doing with my head for the years I was at Neiman Marcus, because I was always targeting specialized groups of customers with special interests. But the database is a lot more accurate and reliable than my head,” Marcus said.
“It’s the first thing that has come along that really excited me, something I would enjoy doing as well as something I think can be very profitable,” he said.
Friends praise Marcus for his sense of humor and enduring youth and energy, honed by consistent health club workouts.
“He listens, he’s observant, and he’s a maverick in terms of stepping away from the wave or the crowd and supporting causes and things that he feels are good for society,” said U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Dallas), who has known Marcus since 1971.
“He talks about today and tomorrow, and is vitally interested in what is going on,” said Liener Temerlin, chairman of the Temerlin McClain advertising agency and a friend for 45 years.
“I think he’s the youngest man I know,” Temerlin said. “Good man, good citizen, good human being.”
