Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf Goodman

“My first trip to Bergdorf Goodman
was probably in utero, because my
mother shopped here all the time,
so I just can’t remember not coming.”

Roughly 160,000 people visit Bergdorf Goodman at 754 Fifth Avenue each month. They come with their mothers, their daughters, their sisters and friends, to gossip, catch up, have their nails done, sip tea nestled into a hooded footman chair, or nibble a Gotham Salad while gazing out over Central Park.

But mostly, they come here to shop. Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys, and Nordstrom might carry the same Marc Jacobs handbag or Manolo Blahnik pump, but buying those items from Bergdorf Goodman feels different somehow.

“Bergdorf Goodman has an audience that is a cross section not only of privileged New Yorkers, but tourists,” says Harold Koda, curator-in-charge of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “That kind of multicultural engagement is something you really only find maybe on Broadway in New York. It’s an almost theatrical experience.”

Slipping through the revolving doors and onto the parquet de Versailles is a transporting experience. That first glimpse of an exotic skin Akris tote or black diamond Lorraine Schwartz jewels, beckoning from their cases, is enough to hook most women for life. Even something as simple as a pair of stockings becomes a decadent treat when it’s tucked inside a lavender Bergdorf Goodman shopping bag. And the shoes, well …

“It’s the most important shoe salon there is, probably in the world,” George Malkemus, chief executive officer of Manolo Blahnik (and former Bergdorf Goodman copy chief), says. “I see women at Bergdorf who, after lunch, after they’ve had their hair coiffed, they’re in the shoe salon, and they are captivated by the other women there, watching what they’re trying on, asking for the same styles. When it’s very busy, it becomes a feeding frenzy for footwear.”

“I come to the store at least once a week,” says Andrew Rosen, founder and chief executive officer of Theory. “I just like being able to check out what’s going on, what the energy is on the floor, what people are reacting to, what Bergdorf is standing for, who they believe in. It’s a great environment.”

“It’s one store on the planet where everyone comes to see what’s going on,” designer Narciso Rodriguez says. “To see accessories, the ready-to-wear, just the finest, most beautiful things. Whether you come to New York as a tourist or whether you live here, it’s the lightning rod that attracts everyone who’s serious about fashion.”

“We try to play down the intimidation factor, but it’s hard to make it go away one hundred percent because there is some reality to it,” says Burt Tansky, former president and chief executive officer of Neiman Marcus. “The entrances are narrow. The doors are small. It’s not easy to flow in and out. We have a great many sales associates on the floor who move quickly to be helpful. It’s not like a typical large department store where you can drift in and out, get no service, and spend most of the day there on your own.”

“There is an intimacy to shopping at Bergdorf,” Wendy Goodman, design editor at New York Magazine, adds. “The rooms are carved up into cozy spaces, so even though it is a very large store, you can keep wandering and going down different paths, discovering things, without ever feeling overwhelmed by the real estate.”

If retail therapy exists, then this is as good as the analyst’s couch. “It’s one of the greatest places to get your medicine, if that’s what you’re looking for,” says designer Lela Rose. No spoonful of sugar necessary.

My mother was a great, prolific shopper. She always used to say that riding the elevator at Bergdorf was better than therapy. I think I was around fourteen or maybe fifteen, and we were shopping together in the shoe department, which was a favorite destination of hers. I picked out something like four pairs, and I wanted them all. I spent a lot of time debating, and my mother finally got sick of waiting—which, by the way, is a routine I am familiar with now that I have a daughter. So she said, “Oh, just get everything.” And that was kind of it for me. I was bitten by the fashion bug, here at Bergdorf Goodman.

—Kate Betts, contributing editor, Time

Right when I moved to New York, I met Eleanor Lambert, who started the International Best-Dressed List. I remember she told me that when she moved to New York, I think in the twenties or thirties, she would come to Bergdorf Goodman, and Mr. Goodman would be at the door to greet you. So I sort of always thought of it as old-school glamour. Part of me wishes that they had just made the store in the Vanderbilt mansion instead of tearing it down, but they retained the glamour, and the location can’t be beat.

—Mickey Boardman, editorial director, Paper

I did my internship at Bergdorf Goodman when I was a student at FIT. There was an information booth at the Fifty-Eighth Street entrance, and I would have to hide and crouch down on a little stool and pop up as soon as somebody walked in and say, “Welcome to Bergdorf Goodman!” You could really startle these ladies if they weren’t expecting you.

Lucille Ball used to come in to shop. She was fabulous. I remember there were all these jars of Imperial Formula lined up in a pyramid shape on the counter, and she would go to pull one from the bottom, joking to make us think the whole sculpture would collapse.

I was also a Christmas angel not long after I started. These were young girls who would stand at the front of the store, and people—usually gentlemen—would come in and give you their shopping lists. And you would say, “I’m your Christmas angel. How can I help you?” That wouldn’t be very PC today.

—Candy Pratts Price, creative director, Vogue.com

I first went to Bergdorf because I was doing a Vogue story on John Barrett, the British hair designer, and his salon was on the top floor. So I didn’t actually buy anything. I don’t think I would have gone there to shop for myself at the time, age twenty-seven, having just arrived in New York.

This was 1997 or ’98, and it was all about the Miller sisters, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Gwyneth Paltrow—these gorgeous blond American girls. It was really chic at the time to have that white-blond hair, ironed perfectly straight. I got to New York and thought, “I’m so brunet, and everyone here is so blond.” So I went to Bergdorf and dyed my hair and wrote about it for a story called “Chasing Goldilocks” in Vogue.

—Plum Sykes, author, Bergdorf Blondes

My earliest memory of Bergdorf Goodman was my mother making these caftans and tunics for a woman by the name of Lorraine Clair. My mom was a dressmaker, and this woman had found my mother and asked her to make these caftans and tunics with a hand-painted silk. She sold them at Bergdorf Goodman.

I was just a kid. I had no idea what Bergdorf Goodman was, but at some point, my mom wanted to come in and see the stuff that she made, hanging on the racks. So I came in with her. She told me rich people shopped there.

As a customer of Bergdorf now, I’ve found that it’s one of the only places that I don’t mind paying retail. The editorial viewpoint that the store’s putting forward is really on point, and you know there are not going to be a lot of these pieces. There’s usually only one in my size. And if I don’t get it, someone else will.

—Robert Verdi, stylist

Balmain gown, fall 1951, original sketch rendered by Bergdorf Goodman.

Bergdorf Goodman’s Tom Ford advertisement for the New York Times, fall 2011.

My sister and I began working at a really young age, and we would often travel to New York. We always had a lot of women around us, so whenever we ended up with a little break, we would go to Bergdorf Goodman. I remember it was a special experience for the woman we were with, going to the shoe department. We were probably about five or six at the time.

As we got older, the shoes were the first things we could fit into. We started to hit the five, five and a half, six size range, and it was exciting to actually start to try things on. Because up until then, we were so young and petite, it was kind of hard to shop here.

—Ashley Olsen, designer, The Row and Elizabeth & James

People go crazy at the shoe sales. There are e-mails flying. I’m getting calls, “Did you go over there? What did you see?” You don’t even have time to talk to your friends because you want to go and get the shoes before they do.

I have been at Bergdorf and seen women seated next to the Mount Rainier of stilettos—just piles and piles of shoes they are buying because the deals are so fantastic. It’s really kind of funny because you see all these very smart, sophisticated, gorgeous women acting like little kids. They’re sixteen again, like, “Oh, I’ve got to grab that shoe.”

Women in New York can’t have enough. Their closets may be the size of postage stamps, but their shoe collections are enormous, and they’re buying them at Bergdorf Goodman.

—Mary Alice Stephenson, style expert

One of the first times I came to Bergdorf Goodman, it was very busy in the shoe salon. I saw this woman who was wasn’t getting help because all the salesmen were so busy. So I thought, “I’m going to help her.” I said hello. She didn’t know who I was.

I confess: I was slightly pushing some of my shoes as she looked.

She told me I was a good salesman. “I’ve never seen you here before,” she said.

I told her, “Well, you know. I’m just new here. This is my first day.”

Once she had the styles she liked, I found someone from Bergdorf, and I said, “I actually have someone over there who would like to try these styles.” Because I couldn’t go into the stockrooms—I didn’t know where they kept the shoes. Then I disappeared, because there wasn’t much more I could do for her. She did buy some shoes. I just hope I wasn’t rude, leaving her that way.

—Christian Louboutin, designer

I spent my very first commission check of $340 at Bergdorf Goodman. It was 1974. I was twenty-three at the time. I shouldn’t have been spending the money, but I ran my butt right over to Bergdorf, went up to their coat department, intimidated like crazy by the way those ladies handled me, and I spent the whole $340 on the fanciest coat I could find.

The coat was god-awful, frankly. It was probably the only ugly one on the whole floor. But it cried out for me. It had a mandarin collar with some kind of dog hair and went all the way down to my ankles. But I was so fancy in that coat, walking up and down the streets of New York.

—Barbara Corcoran, real estate entrepreneur

When I was in tenth or eleventh grade, we took a trip to New York with my boyfriend’s parents. We went to Bergdorf Goodman—it was the first time I had ever been to the store.

I was totally in awe. I just remember the exterior and this beautiful, grand, incredibly classic building … all the jewels … and the richness of it … It was mind-blowing.

About four months later, I bought a dog for my boyfriend, a Dalmatian, and I named him Bergdorf.

I know it sounds bizarre. But it’s really incredible that, so many years later, I designed the BG Restaurant. In a million years, I never would have thought that would happen.

—Kelly Wearstler, designer

One time, there was a mother and a daughter who came to Bergdorf and bought the same dress from my collection. That was really kind of fascinating to me.

I’ve had clients who are seventy-five or eighty here, trying on coats of mine, next to women who are a quarter of their age. For me, that’s really cool, having older customers who are willing to try something new from a young designer and, of course, reaching the younger set at the same time. That only happens at Bergdorf.

—Thakoon Panichgul, designer

My mom was a model in New York, so I saw Bergdorf boxes before I could walk. She loved Bergdorf because it had a cachet of chic that no other store had. And that has continued, which is really shocking.

My own daughter was two and half weeks late being born, so I was huge—I had put on sixty pounds and had to wear muumuus. I was Shamu the Whale. And I used to lurch through Bergdorf—at the time, I lived just up the street. One day, I noticed another shopper looking at me sort of quizzically and finally she came over and said, “You know, you have Candice Bergen’s face.”

I later brought my daughter here for her first winter coat. And we got her prom dress here. It’s really fun to come in with her. We skulk around the fifth floor and then go to lunch.

—Candice Bergen, actress

“One Thousand Vintage Barbie Outfits,” store window, 2011.

I really don’t know when Bergdorf entered my perception because my mom would bring me here on outings. There used to be a doorman at Bergdorf who would park her car. I’m not kidding. My mother would come and leave her car, and this guy, whoever he was, would watch it. For the whole day. And she wasn’t some crazy-rich customer. She was a bourgeois lady from Brooklyn!

I do remember there were all those great hats, the Halston hats, and the Emeric Partos furs. Most people don’t know that name, but to me, Emeric Partos was a god. This was a man who could make anything out of fur—knickers, capes, hats, all the outfits Barbra Streisand wore in My Name Is Barbra.

My mother used to describe expensive clothes as “small,” and the woman who wore them were “fine-boned.” You would see these almost ghostlike silhouettes walking through Bergdorf. They were so faint, they would float across the aisles. And they were always covered up. They wore hats and glasses and wigs. Women were incognito when they shopped in those days. People didn’t like to be caught in the act.

The great lesson of my life was walking into Bergdorf and seeing just the stillness of it, the silence of it, the elegance of it. Today retail is not about that. It’s about loud noises and giant displays. Everything is at huge decibel levels. But when I was a kid, somehow when you walked into Bergdorf, you just felt that everything would be okay. Like if there was a hurricane, or an earthquake, or a tsunami, if you were at Bergdorf Goodman, you would be just fine.

—Isaac Mizrahi, designer

I was thirteen when I first visited New York—it was for a birthday trip. When my mom and I went to explore the big city, she said, “You need to know two words: ‘Bergdorf Goodman’.”

—Edward Bess, founder, Edward Bess cosmetics

What I remember most is coming with my mother and having a sense that I was about to meet somebody very important, because she took me to see the Bergdorf Goodman fashion director, Ethel Frankau. This was in the fifties.

There was great ceremony to it. I remember the furniture, all the settees in Ms. Frankau’s area. It felt like we were in a private living room. It was very quiet. There was a lovely kind of reserve to the space. Models were walking around wearing dresses to demonstrate fit. It was all very exciting for me as a little girl.

—Wendy Goodman, design editor, New York Magazine

My best Bergdorf moment was when I came here with my mother as a child. I was seven years old and we were at Carnegie Hall, being photographed by Carl Van Vechten, and we decided to walk through Bergdorf Goodman.

I stepped inside, and I was instantly grounded. The lighting, the chandeliers, the glass cases, the high ceilings—when you’re tiny, everything is very big. And I thought, “This is something very special.”

So that was my first experience. Then my mother and I went to the Plaza for tea.

—Pat Cleveland, former model

I was born and grew up on the Upper East Side and Bergdorf Goodman was a part of my weekend life. My mother and I used to come all the time, so I spent many a Saturday here.

When I was very young—I must have been about seven years old—we were up on the children’s floor, and I remember my mother purchasing a beautiful white rabbit coat for me. And the Goodmans actually came down to see me and to greet us. So I remember a very distinct meeting I had with Mr. Goodman and his wife. That’s one of the most special memories I have of Bergdorf Goodman.

The store has been a multigenerational experience in our family. Three generations of women have shopped here.

—Vera Wang, designer

My earliest memories of Bergdorf Goodman are from when I was a very small child. My mother would come here during her lunch breaks from Estée Lauder to buy me these beautiful little smocked dresses, and I always remember her coming home with them wrapped up in pretty lavender bags. We grew up very close to Bergdorf, so this was a natural place for us to come shopping together. I would shop for contemporary clothes and she had her designer favorites. So we both left happy.

—Olivia Chantecaille, creative director, Chantecaille cosmetics

Chanel dress, spring 1965, original sketch rendered by Bergdorf Goodman.

Bergdorf Goodman’s advertisement for Valentino, the New York Times, spring 2011.

Certainly, growing up in Garden City, a suburb of New York, I had heard about Bergdorf Goodman. It was like the Emerald City. It was Oz in New York in terms of shopping.

My first experience here was picking out my bridesmaids’ dresses. The bridal salon of Bergdorf Goodman was a very exciting place for a twenty-two-year-old girl. I had just been living here for a matter of months, and to me, Bergdorf was magical. The store itself is so quintessentially New York and certainly what I dreamed it would be, with all the detail, the moldings, the high ceilings, the aura that I felt coming in. I had looked in all the different stores around town, but I just simply liked the bridesmaids’ dresses at Bergdorf best.

I got married in September and the dresses were an apricot/peachy color. They were silk brocade, very simply cut, long, and beautiful. You hear such nightmares about bridesmaids’ dresses, but my bridesmaids were very happy.

—Susan Lucci, actress

I had a woman come in at least fifteen years ago. She was heavy but her friends were all slim, and they told her to come and see me. She walked in with great trepidation.

I have a certain set of questions that I ask clients on the phone first, which usually gives me a very good idea of what to pull for them. This happened to be a year when I had a lot of things that would work for her particular size. So I found her many beautiful clothes.

Once she was in the dressing room, I had to leave for a moment, and when I came back, she was standing there crying. Feeling guilty, I said, “Oh my god. What did I do? Are you all right?”

And she said, “You have to understand. I came here thinking that you were going to look at me and say, ‘I have nothing to sell you. Go home. You’re too heavy.’ And now you’ve got more clothes for me than I can afford to buy.”

That, to me, was more meaningful than selling $100,000 worth of jewelry—not that I don’t like selling $100,000 pieces of jewelry.

—Elaine Mack, personal shopper

My daughter and I both work at Bergdorf Goodman.

She was very young when we emigrated from Russia to the United States. I was trained as an engineer, but I always loved fashion. My first job in this country was to do manicures and pedicures. My parents were very comfortable in Russia, and we used to have a lady come to my house to do this for us. But I needed a job, so I went to a salon on Park Avenue—not Queens or Brooklyn—and they took me right away.

After about six months, the owner said, “You’re too good for this. You’re too bright. You have to go do something else. I’m going to give you a whole day off. Just go and find a job.”

I said, “Are you firing me?” And I started to cry.

He said, “No, I’m not firing you. I just think you can do better.”

So I went to Saks for about four months, and I should probably not say this, but I hated it. I was just a number to them. They never knew my name.

Then I came here to Bergdorf. I started in Fragrances and Cosmetics. After a few months, I asked around, “How much does a top sales person produce?” I watched, I learned. In a year, I beat that number. Then I moved to the Chanel handbags department, then upstairs to the Chanel boutique, and then they asked me to become a personal shopper. I’ve been here thirty years.

—Alla Prokopov, personal shopper

I would often come here to Bergdorf when the rest of my class was on a field trip. My mother would say, “Come to the store instead. You’ll learn more.” Because usually the field trip was to the zoo or something, and I’d already been.

So I’d come to the store, and I just remember sitting in the cash wraps on some cardboard box or a footstool. And I would either have a coloring book with me or my homework. But most of time I ended up sitting there, watching the sales associates and the customers.

It always smelled nice and there were always pretty people around and everybody was always dressed so well—just heaven for a little girl.

—Karina Prokopov, couture eveningwear manager

In 2007, I got a call from Linda Fargo [senior vice president of the fashion office and store presentation] at Bergdorf Goodman. She asked if I would be interested in designing their new restaurant. Of course I was thrilled. I went to New York for a visit and saw the space, which wasn’t a restaurant then. It was a shopping area for home objects and china and books. But it was a beautiful space, overlooking Central Park.

I wanted it to feel very fresh, but classic—that it respected the architecture and the history of Bergdorf Goodman. But it also had to be fashionable and a place someone who was twenty or ninety years old would appreciate. So that was challenging.

In designing the concept, I came up with the idea of a series of salons, because that’s how Bergdorf feels, with the various salons for all the different fashion designers. So there’s the bar area, then you move into the main dining room. In the back, there’s what feels like a private salon.

When you’re in the room, looking out those amazing windows and seeing the trees of Central Park, the colors work with that view. They had to have a dialogue.

My first concept did not look very much like it does now. I had everything a beautiful cinnabar color that was just very rich and masculine, very cool and sexy. But it was heavy. Linda Fargo and Jim Gold [president of specialty retail, Neiman Marcus Group] felt the space should have a lighter palette. So then it was pink and green, which I really loved. But with the restaurant having so many different clients, that wasn’t quite right either.

Everyone loves blue. Men love blue. Women love blue. Children love blue. It just feels happy, and it can be sexy and fresh and modern and classic all at the same time. So we used a robin’s egg blue, and then a really beautiful bone color with gold leaf and ebony detailing, and then a citrine—this beautiful yellow.

The whole process took about a year. We spent three or four months on schematics and concept design, and then there were the drawings, all the detailing, and, of course, the construction.

I’ve had many meals there since then. Looking back, it was one of my all-time best and favorite projects.

—Kelly Wearstler, designer

When you go up to the BG Restaurant, it’s like walking into a Hollywood Regency fantasyland. It’s gorgeous. It overlooks Central Park and the Plaza. When you enter, you’re immediately a part of the scene, the buzz. There’s this energy there. I don’t think that happens in most restaurants that are known as haunts for ladies who lunch.

I love going there, because as a person who doesn’t have an office, the restaurant becomes my office. I can go there supposedly for lunch and not leave until six o’clock in the evening. Because I will just have meeting after meeting, and sometimes they are unexpected impromptu moments. You run into someone and say, “Why don’t you sit down? Let’s have some tea.” And then you run into someone else and it’s, “Sit down. Why don’t we have some wine?” And then before you know it, it’s six or seven o’clock and you’ve been at BG since noon.

—Bevy Smith, social media socialite

Sometimes people make fun of the lady who lunches, but, frankly, that’s our customer. That’s the girl I like. She’s dressed. She looks great. She’s got on her heels. She’s out and ordering a teeny little salad. There are definitely a lot of ladies who lunch who go to Bergdorf, but it doesn’t mean that it’s such a rarified place to eat. It’s just a place to go where you feel like you’re going to see some high fashion. I so appreciate that over someone who is always in sweats or jeans, who doesn’t feel like they need to make an effort and put on something fun for the day.

—Lela Rose, designer

I like Gotham Salad so much that even when I don’t eat at the BG Restaurant, my assistant goes and gets it for me and brings it to my office.

—Santiago Gonzalez, president and creative director, Nancy Gonzalez

Bergdorf Goodman’s advertisement for Michael Kors, the New York Times, fall 2011.

Bergdorf Goodman’s advertisement for Christian Dior, Vogue, September 1960.

There are certain people who have certain tables they like or that they must have. We get requests for different seats, and so every morning, we set the stage with that. Oftentimes, we’ll have a luncheon in the back of the dining room. It can be maybe thirty people. Or a birthday party, a baby shower, or a wedding shower—those are always very fun, festive.

The peak is usually around one to two o’clock for lunch. Everybody wants to be recognized, they want to be flattered. Some of these ladies really knock themselves out, especially if they’re meeting girlfriends. It is a place to doll up and get glamorous. We try to handle everything as smoothly as possible. We may have a lady who always likes a certain corner table, but then as we’re walking her to that table, she’ll see someone nearby and say to me very quietly, “Oh, I can’t sit here today, dear. Put me as far away as possible.” And without seeming like we’re out of step at all, we just casually go right by and take her to another corner of the room, out of sight from whomever she doesn’t want to be seen with.

Sometimes, you’ll overhear something. The lady might mention something to her girlfriend: “I can’t believe that she’s here today.” And you can piece together the backstory. We get so many customers who we become friends with and who share with us all the dramas in their lives.

—Michael Perricone, director, BG Restaurants

When my girlfriend, Alexis, and I first started dating, we were spending a lot of time in New York because I had an apartment there. And we would look out at the Bergdorf windows and talk late into the night about them, how we’d re-create this or that in our own lives. “I want to live in that room. I want to dress this way.”

When I decided to propose, I wondered if I could get Bergdorf to do a window just for us, so we could have this magical environment all to ourselves. And so I called Pamela Fiori [former editor in chief of Town & Country], and she put me in touch with Linda Fargo at Bergdorf, and I said, “You don’t know me, but I’m Trevor and I have this idea.”

She said, “That’s not possible. I don’t know how the store will feel about it.” But I was persistent, and finally, she said, “Well, let me call you in a couple of days.” She did call back and she said, “You know, I talked to the brass here and they’re willing, but I think a window will be too small. It’ll be too hot in there with the lights, too cramped. It’s just not possible. But there’s a little room inside the store—we call it the rotunda. I’ve always had a fantasy about doing something special in there. This is the perfect occasion.”

There was a lot of brainstorming that went into it. We only had two weeks to pull it together. Linda found this incredible Venetian grotto table and chairs and we talked about all the things that would go onto the table.

Alexis is the creative director at her family’s vineyard in Napa, and they have a line of wines called Alexis, and I wanted a bottle of her wine there. They also do caviar. So I had some of her caviar and her chocolate shipped to New York, and I had to sneak over to Bergdorf to meet with Linda. She choreographed this entire event for one night only, and then had to have it all cleared out by the next day. The store had to be the store again.

On the night of our engagement, I told Alexis I had a dinner reservation for us. I was in jeans because I didn’t want her to suspect that anything was going on. Meanwhile, I had the ring in one pocket and her nightgown in the other. Oh, and my Prilosec. That was what I brought: the ring, the Prilosec, and the nightgown.

We took a carriage ride through Central Park. It was drizzling. The doorman at Bergdorf was outside with an umbrella and he welcomed Alexis by name and opened this little box with a key, which of course opened the door to the store.

We walked into this beautiful room. They had removed all the handbags from the rotunda, and in each of the alcoves was a nest for birds or a little something special to look at, painted peacocks and things. They had strung flower petals from the chandelier and there were candles everywhere and orchids. It was all so sensory, with the candles and the fabulous grotto table and chairs. And what was so perfect and precious about it was that, like some sort of midsummer night’s fantasy, it would evaporate. You knew it was there for an hour, and then it would go away. No one else would ever see it again.

—Trevor Traina, technology entrepreneur

When I first walked into the store, I had no clue what was going on. I turned to [Trevor] and said, “Did you win this in some sort of charity auction?” Then he got down on one knee and proposed.

Linda had only promised him an hour, but we were there more like two or three. We sat and had this feast, ending with a mille-feuille cake from Lady Mendl’s Tea Salon.

After Trevor proposed, I wanted to know, “Who did all this? How did it come about?” And then magically, there was Linda. We all embraced, and I said, “Tell me about your team.”

And Linda said, “Team! Team!” And out of the shadows came god knows how many people. They were all there to help pull this off, and they were just as excited as we were.

What we didn’t know was that they had painted our initials onto one of the windows on Fifth Avenue, so we could see it as we were leaving for our suite at the Pierre. In the end, we got our window after all.

—Alexis Traina, creative director, Swanson Vineyards

I wanted to create an enchanted forest for them. We even had a soundtrack playing of exotic birds. We all stayed in the building, and I confess, we snuck around the corner, listening as hard as we could—basically eavesdropping. But we couldn’t hear a thing. We couldn’t hear him proposing. We couldn’t hear what she said. And we were like, “Why did we have those damn birds?”

But it was very romantic. And Trevor was impossible to say no to because his enthusiasm and his passion were just infectious. We’ve never done anything like that for anyone before or since.

—Linda Fargo, senior vice president of the fashion office and store presentation

Bergdorf Goodman’s advertisement for Givenchy, the New York Times, spring 2010.

Balmain gown, spring 1966, original sketch rendered by Bergdorf Goodman.

I remember one time we were doing something over the top insane in the evening department—we had a dress made in, like, two days, shipped to the customer, which required jumping through all these hoops. So I was upstairs in Client Services a lot, and one of the women there said to me, “You know, don’t worry. This is nothing for us.” And then she told me a story about a bride who was getting married who had ordered her dress from Bergdorf Goodman. Something went wrong. The bride called in a panic, and the store had to send a new dress out to the wedding in the Hamptons.

This was in the middle of summer, so there was traffic and they couldn’t risk sending the dress with a driver. So the store hired a helicopter and flew the gown out there to make sure that it got there in time.

—Karina Prokopov, couture eveningwear manager

In two cases, I was part of divorce settlements. Both women were huge clients of mine and both of them were getting divorces and they weren’t going to be able to, well, shop the way they had in the past. So as part of the legal agreements, each of them got one last gigantic shopping spree at Bergdorf, after hours.

I do remember selling one of the ladies an extraordinarily fabulous jacket during her final visit. She told me it cost more than her first car.

—Elaine Mack, personal shopper

I stopped seeing a gentleman, and I was very depressed, and I came into Bergdorf and went right to the good jewelry department. I bought these gorgeous topaz and gold necklaces. It’s amazing because I still have the necklaces. No longer have him, but those topaz and golds get pulled out all the time. Retail therapy? Absolutely works.

—Joan Rivers, comedian

I have a client who was shopping in Bergdorf, and she completely lost track of time. She was just going through the racks, and all of a sudden, she said, “Oh my god, it’s eleven o’clock at night. The store is closed.” She realized all the doors were locked.

But she didn’t panic. She said, “You know what? What a better thing than being by myself at Bergdorf? I’m just going to shop and try new things.” So she went on until probably one o’clock in the morning, trying on the clothes. And at some point, she got a little scared because nobody was looking for her. She finally saw a man walking, I think, with a dog. And it was security.

But the security guard was terrified because he thought he was seeing a ghost! He settled down and helped her out of the building. The day after, she came in and bought everything she had tried on the night before. But she said to me, “You know what? I was so happy. For once the store was mine.”

—Roberto Faraone Mennella, jewelry designer

An advertisement for Bergdorf Goodman, Vogue, August 1919.

At one point, the fur department moved from one side of the second floor to the other, and we had a separate little Fendi boutique for furs, which was new. And we didn’t really have a vault. So at night, we would take in all the expensive Fendi coats to a stockroom closet. The door would just sort of lock behind you. There was no bolt. But that’s where we kept the Fendi furs at night.

Every morning I would come in. I would open that door, and I would set up the salon. Well, one morning I open the stockroom door, and there are no furs in there. I said, “Guys, what’s going on? Where are the furs?”

We found out what had happened from someone who was staying in the Plaza Hotel the night before. They looked out and saw the windows at Bergdorf Goodman were open, and somebody was throwing fur coats down to the street below, one by one. And another person was down on the street, catching them and tossing them into a van.

I don’t think the police ever caught the thieves—I can’t remember if they did. But there were about fifteen coats taken. They even threw some mannequins wearing furs out of the windows. Later on that day, we found those mannequins in Central Park with the furs still on them, attached with security devices, because that’s how we displayed them. The burglars left them in the grass, and we did get those back.

—Jack Cohen, former fur department buyer

I remember one Saturday, I was home in bed, and I got a call from the store: a royal was coming in and they expected me to have some clothes ready for her. I lived in the suburbs then, which meant not only getting dressed, but making it to the train on time.

So my husband comes home in the middle of my frantically rushing around and says, “Where are you going? And why are you getting so dressed up?”

I said, “I have to go to work.”

He said, “Today? It’s Saturday. Who’s so special that you have to go to work on a weekend?”

And I said, “Well, the Queen of—,” and he laughed. And I went in.

This particular queen came dressed incognito, in blue jeans, a crepe blazer, with a hat pulled down over her head. But she had all these burly security guards with her, who were kind of hard to miss. I had clothes in the room ready for her, but she said, “I have to walk around. I’m dying to walk around this store.”

Well, the security guys were not happy about that. They had to stay right with her. And so here she’s dressed incognito, trying to have a normal day out shopping. But there are these nine-foot-tall guys with earpieces in following her around the store.

We went from floor to floor, because that’s what she wanted, and I was happy to oblige. And all the while, those guards were trying their hardest to be inconspicuous, going through boutique after boutique of ladies’ clothes, pretending to look at little delicate dresses and things, when they were really keeping their eyes on her.

—Elaine Mack, personal shopper

I needed some stockings. I was running to rehearsal for a special, so I ran into Bergdorf and got up to the lingerie department.

Nobody was there. It was pretty empty except for the saleslady. She came up and she was so sweet. She said, “Hello, Miss Burnett. It’s so nice to have you. What can I do for you?”

“I need some stockings.”

“Of course.” Then she had me sign autographs for five of her grandchildren, which I was happy to do and all.

Then it came time to pay and I didn’t have the right credit card with me. I said, “Oh, gosh. It’s back at the hotel. Could I write you a check?”

“Well, I’ll need some identification.”

I said, “But you know who I am.”

She said, “Oh, I know that, but we need your driver’s license and we have to write the things on the check. Wait a minute. Let me go check with Miss Carlton, who is the floor manager.” She’s this lovely lady clear across the floor—still empty—at a desk. This lady went over there to that lady, whispered, whispered, whispered, waving back hi, and I’m waving back.

Finally, she comes back. She says, “Miss Carlton will approve your check if you’ll do the Tarzan yell.” Okay, at Bergdorf Goodman, I’m gonna do the Tarzan yell? So I did, and it was a doozy. From the back of the room, the exit door burst open and there was a security guard with a gun.

So now I only do it under controlled circumstances because I don’t want to give anybody a heart attack or get shot.

—Carol Burnett, comedian, on Tavis Smiley, PBS, April 30, 2010

“The Scenic Route,” holiday store window, 2010.

I was really new to the store and working on the third floor. This was in 1977 or ’78. Carol Burnett came in and wanted to purchase something but didn’t have any ID with her, and she wanted to pay with a check.

So I checked with my manager and got the okay, and I go back to Carol Burnett, and I say to her, because I have a pretty good sense of humor, “You know I can do this for you, but you have to prove to me that you’re really Carol Burnett. I want you to do the Tarzan call.”

So she did it right in the store, and it was hilarious. Everybody was looking and laughing and it was really funny, and then she paid and we gave her the item and that was it.

Well, when Carol Burnett tells that story, she says that a security guard came running over, pulling his gun, because he heard someone screaming. She claims that’s why she never does the Tarzan call anymore. But between you and me, I don’t think our security guards even carry guns.

—Carole Wasserman, sales associate

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