On the window sign of an iconic luxury-retail store on Madison Avenue, the message was loud and clear...
"EVERYTHING MUST BE SOLD! GOODBUYS, THEN GOODBYE!"
For decades, Barneys New York had been the premier fashion store in the city. The company's Madison Avenue headquarters boasted nine floors and about 275,000 square feet of retail space.
Barneys started out as a men's discount clothing store in Manhattan in 1923. Over the following decades, it transformed and grew into a luxury-retail powerhouse.
By the 1980s, the company had developed a reputation for introducing the best global luxury brands to an increasingly wealthy American consumer market.
Its flagship New York store featured wall-to-wall designer labels – from Giorgio Armani to Balenciaga. If it was expensive, Barneys had it.
In short, it was a traditional luxury shopper's paradise.
The store was even prominently featured in the hit TV series Sex and the City. Its fashionista lead character, Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker), considered Barneys one of her favorite places to shop.
But on February 23, 2020, Barneys New York closed...
And so did the company's two other stores in New York, along with those in San Francisco and Beverly Hills, California. All branches closed, all on the same day.
Fashion-industry figures called it the end of an era.
But it was ultimately a failure to adapt to changing times...
When Barneys opened its gigantic store on Madison Avenue in 1993, it set the bar for luxury shopping in New York.
But that came at a price – in the form of costly rent.
You see, Barneys didn't own the property it did business on. Most of the company's money was tied up in expensive goods kept in inventory. Barneys sold those goods at huge markups to store customers.
The company's annual revenue reached nearly $1 billion at its height. One-third of that figure came from Madison Avenue alone.
This allowed Barneys to make good on millions of dollars of rent – including $16 million a year just for the Madison Avenue store.
The business model worked... as long as people kept going into the stores to buy goods.
But then the Internet came along – and took off. It gave rise to e-commerce and a strategy called direct to consumer ("DTC").
Brand manufacturers could now use the Internet to sell products directly to their customers. This allowed them to cut out the middlemen – typically, owners of retail establishments.
It didn't take long for consumers to realize they could buy luxury goods – the same ones found on Barneys' store shelves – from authorized online retailers.
These online retailers often displayed more designs and models than what physical stores like Barneys could keep in stock. And of course, customers could shop right from home.
Foot traffic to Barneys declined. And then, the landlord doubled the rent at the flagship Madison Avenue store. It was too much for Barneys to bear.
In mid-2019, the company filed for bankruptcy. And the Madison Avenue location wound down... until shuttering in February 2020.
Barneys became a cautionary tale in the $1.8 trillion global fashion industry. Even a nearly century-old business institution could end up in the trash bin of history if it failed to adapt to changing times.
Of course, the fashion industry didn't go anywhere. It's still a big business.
Folks, my point with this story is simple...
The world around us is always changing. It was true when the iconic Barneys closed in 2020. And it'll be true in 2025.
The investment decisions we make this year will determine whether we keep up with the changes.
Good investing,
Marc Chaikin
