AU REVOIR, HENRI
Iconic luxury retail chain closing after 123 years
Say goodbye, Bendel girls. Henri Bendel — the iconic department store known for bringing Coco Chanel to the US and catering to generations of so-called Bendel Girls — is shutting its doors after 123 years.
The decision to turn out the lights in January at all 23 swanky stores nationwide — including its landmark flagship at 714 Fifth Ave. — was announced Friday by its parent company, L Brands, which also owns Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works.
“We have decided to stop operating Bendel to improve company profitability and focus on our larger brands that have greater growth potential,” said billionaire Les Wexner, chairman and chief executive of L Brands.
Bendel, which opened its doors in Greenwich Village near the end of the 19th century, was founded by Henri Bendel, a women’s hat maker from Lafayette, La.
He moved to New York in 1895 and began catering to the city’s elite, making the store’s brown-and-white striped shopping bags and hat boxes a coveted status symbol. In the 1960s, its inhouse illustrator was a young artist named Andy Warhol.
Columbus, Ohio-based L Brands, which acquired Henri Bendel in 1985, has lately neglected the brand while it scrambles to fix its flailing Victoria’s Secret chain, according to critics.
L Brands “didn’t give the brand the true stewardship they needed to,” according to Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners.
Bendel, which only started opening stores outside New York City in 2008, announced plans to stop selling clothes the following year to focus on accessories and gifts.
In 2014, Bendel, which had been known for featuring such up-and-coming labels as Anna Sui, decided to give up on selling outside brands.
“People kept going to Bendel’s long after it changed because they re- membered the romance of the place,” Faith Hope Consolo of Douglas Elliman told The Post.
But Bendel’s focus on its own private-label accessories and handbags ”fell flat” — with designs that looked like cheap Michael Kors and Kate Spade knockoffs, said retail consultant Gabriella Santaniello of A-Line Partners.
It once “had a wide range of price points and different brands all wrapped up in a beautiful, iconic location where you just felt special walking in the door,” Santaniello said.
As L Brands expanded Bendel beyond New York and into shopping malls in places including Atlanta, Houston, Oak Brook, Ill., and Troy, Mich., it failed to gain traction in Middle America.
“The person in the suburbs didn’t have the same attachment to Bendel,” Consolo said.
While the Midtown stretch of Fifth Avenue was once synonymous with fashion and luxury, the boutiques have increasingly moved back downtown.
Big-box brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch, H&M and Uniqlo, meanwhile, have invaded Fifth Avenue’s Miracle Mile stretching between Rockefeller Center and the Plaza Hotel.