“Daytripping,” holiday store window, 2010.
“It’s pretty extreme that people would
think about scattering their ashes in
Bergdorf, but I’m sure it happens. If
someone I knew put that in their will,
I think it would actually make me laugh,
because it would show me that their
sense of humor was continuing on.”
In the April 30, 1990, issue of The New Yorker magazine, Victoria Roberts published a cartoon showing two women sitting across from each other at a lunch table. The caption read: “I want my ashes scattered over Bergdorf’s.”
Turns out, quite a few Bergdorf Goodman customers have actually considered dispersing their remains Shawshank Redemption–style around the store, and many more think of Bergdorf Goodman as a fitting final resting place.
“I wanted to live in a department store when I was about twelve,” cartoonist Roberts says of her ongoing fascination with the store. “I grew up in Mexico, and my mother used to travel, and one of the things I always remembered about New York was Bergdorf Goodman. Then I came here when I was nineteen and bought something and did a collage from the Bergdorf Goodman receipt. When I think of Bergdorf, I think of little things in exquisite detail.
“I really don’t remember specifically how I came up with the caption for that cartoon,” she says. “But it was one of my first published in The New Yorker. I didn’t plan it. I think this one might have arrived, perfect, into the world.”
“Daytripping,” holiday store window, 2010.
Even those who haven’t sprinkled relatives throughout the store go there to remember departed loved ones. “Whenever my family came to New York from Kansas City, my mother, older sister, and I would slip off to Bergdorf,” Anne Kreamer, author and journalist, says. “Later, I’d come down from college to meet Mom for a weekend of shopping in the city. Although my mother is long deceased, now that I live in New York, the store is where I still sense her most. She’s by my side when I’m checking out new shoes and when I’m having my favorite salad, the Gotham.”
If there are ghosts at Bergdorf Goodman, they’re the happy kind, left to drift through this enchanting place as if in a peaceful dream, where there’s no wait for a dressing room and anything you want is yours.
Well, of course we all know the cartoon “Scatter my ashes in Bergdorf Goodman.” But in my act, I always say my husband committed suicide, and he wanted me to visit him every day. So I had him cremated and scattered in Bergdorf. And I haven’t missed a day. That’s in my act, to this day.
My own will, I like to say, starts with “Scatter me in Bergdorf Goodman, in the jewelry department, handbags, fine women’s dresses, and Betty Halbreich’s office.” So Betty, one day, is going to be given a sack, and somebody’s going to have to spread it around.
I also had a friend named Thomas Corcoran who loved the store and loved fashion and shopping. And when he died and was cremated, I took his ashes and dropped them into every single store that he loved. And you guys may not know it, but there’s some of him here at Bergdorf too. I just sprinkled him all around.
—Joan Rivers, comedian
My mother used to get mad at me when I worked on Yom Kippur. This was before cell phones, but she would always call me and yell at me for working on a High Holiday. So I would ask her, “Mom, where are you right now?”
And she’d say, “Bergdorf.” So her idea of celebrating Yom Kippur was to go shopping at Bergdorf Goodman. We always knew where to find her. I tried not to look for her in general, but if you really needed her, you knew where to go.
There are great pictures of her from the seventies in a Pucci dress, pregnant, smoking cigarettes, with a drink in her hand. She was always unbelievably well dressed. When she died, we actually had to go to Hong Kong to close up her apartment, and when we opened her closet, there were twelve identical—very short, because my mother was, like, four one—mink coats, all from Bergdorf Goodman. Even though Hong Kong is, like, nine million degrees year-round.
She died suddenly, without a final will, so my brother and sister and I were sitting around, talking about where we would most want to scatter her ashes. And Bergdorf came up, in all seriousness. We all agreed that was where she would want to be.
My friend the director Barry Sonnenfeld actually came up with an idea of how we could do it—like that scene in Stalag 17. You make a hole in your pocket and put the ashes in and then you walk around the store, so the ashes get sprinkled out of your pants.
We realized this was just too much. The ashes didn’t end up in Bergdorf, even though it is what my mother would have wanted.
—Neil Kraft, owner, KraftWorks
My mom passed away … and my sister and brother and I were arguing and having a really hard time figuring out the plans for her funeral. And I remember sitting in her living room and talking to my sister and brother about how we were going bury her ashes. And I said, “You know, I just don’t think that it’s right to buy one of those ugly things from the funeral home. I really think we should bury her in a Bergdorf box because she loved Bergdorf and this was like her home away from home.”
We didn’t end up doing that. I guess my sister and brother thought it was too frivolous. But I thought it was the perfect solution in a difficult situation.
—Kate Betts, contributing editor, Time
Bergdorf Goodman’s advertisement for Oscar de la Renta, the New York Times, spring 2011.
Balmain gown, spring 1957, original sketch rendered by Bergdorf Goodman.
I remember a woman whose husband was complaining about how much money she spent on Manolo Blahnik shoes at Bergdorf Goodman. And she said, “Okay, honey, you know what? If it bothers you so much, when I die, spread my ashes at Bergdorf Goodman in the shoe salon. Because basically that’s where I spend all my time. It’s where I’m the happiest. It’s not the lake house where we raised the kids. It’s not the house in Greenwich where we give parties every Christmas. When I’m celebrating, when I’m depressed, when I’m sad, I go to Bergdorf Goodman and the shoe salon.”
The husband just had this look on his face, like, “You know, you’re even crazier than I anticipated.” But she was being serious. He was complaining about their American Express bill, and she was being honest.
Practically speaking, I’m not even sure that it’s legal. And what happens next? The cleaning guys come in and vacuum her up?
—George Malkemus, chief executive officer, Manolo Blahnik
I remember being on the seventh floor of Bergdorf Goodman. I had purchased something and I was listening to three Frenchwomen speaking. They were here on vacation. The seventh floor of Bergdorf had become a destination for them. One woman, who was excited as her purchase was being rung up, said, “Well, when I die, I want you to take my ashes and sprinkle them on the seventh floor of Bergdorf Goodman.” I thought, “Hmm, she may not be far off on that. That’s a pretty good idea.”
—Susan Lucci, actress
If someone ever asked me to scatter their ashes here, I would go up on the roof and cast them to the wind and down over the facade of the building. Which would eventually get Windexed, one hopes.
—Mickey Boardman, editorial director, Paper
Let’s be honest, I think whenever anyone says, “Well, where would you like to have your ashes scattered?” you want to have your ashes scattered at a place that is just blissful. And I know a lot of New York women—it could be the most glorious sunny day and Central Park in bloom and divine—who would rather be inside here at Bergdorf.
Some people want a gorgeous beach to have their ashes scattered. Some people, a country meadow. Some people, off of a ship. But I know a lot of women for whom, quite frankly, this is their fulcrum. This is their dream place. This is where they want to be forever.
—Michael Kors, designer
“One Forty-Nine PM,” store window, 2009.