#dorothy shaver

[doubledaybooks]

Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor championed American designers during World War II–before which US fashions were almost exclusively Parisian copies–becoming the first businesswoman to earn a $1 million salary. 

Learn more about Dorothy Shaver and the other owmen who changed American fashion in WHEN WOMEN RAN FIFTH AVENUE by Julie Satow.

[trombonepunk]

Little Shaver Dolls by Dorothy and Elsie Shaver

[abwwia]

Some of you might know I run social media channels under Art by Women - Women in Arts. Every so often while doing my research I come across Fashion HerSTORIES like this one.

Therefore I've decided to start a new series on my Fashion Account, dedicated to

Women in Fashion History = Fashion HerStory

Today I would love to share with you some informations about:

Dorothy Shaver

- the first woman in the United States to head a multimillion-dollar firm!

Dorothy Shaver (Jul 29, 1893 – Jun 29, 1959) was a well known leader of the fashion industry.

Shaver graduated from high school in 1910 at the age of 17. She then earned a teaching certificate from the University of Arkansas. Shaver returned to Mena and began teaching seventh grade. Her teaching career ended abruptly in May 1914, when the local board refused to renew the contracts of Shaver and three other single female teachers because they had attended an unchaperoned dance. (?!?)

In 1916, Shaver and her younger sister Elsie moved to Chicago. While in Chicago, Dorothy studied English literature at the University of Chicago.

(...) Shaver succeeded Walter Hoving as president of Lord & Taylor in 1945. She was given a salary of $110,000. This was the highest salary on record for an American woman at that time, and although it was noted by the author of an article in Life Magazine that the salary was only a quarter of what some "similarly placed male CEOs earned" [comparing it with Thomas J. Watson Sr., President of International Business Machines], the salary was commensurate with what Lord & Taylor paid its top male executives. Walter Hoving, her predecessor, was earning a salary after 10 years as chief executive of $127,015 in 1944.

In 1947, Life Magazine called Shaver "the No. 1 American career woman."' By that point, she was managing a $40 million business.

Shaver served as president of Lord & Taylor until her death in 1959. By the time of her death, sales at Lord & Taylor reached $100 million a year.

via Wikipedia

#DorothyShaver #FashionHerStory #historyoffashion #FashionIcon #PalianShow

[stubobnumbers]

County Spotlight - Howard County, Arkansas.

County Seat: Nashville (AR.) Population: 12,785

Howard County is Arkansas's 74th county, formed on April 17, 1873, and named for James Howard, a state senator.

Nashville, AR: The largest find of dinosaur trackways in the world was discovered by SMU archaeology graduate student Brad Pittman in a quarry north of the town in 1983, the site of a prehistoric beach. A field of 5–10,000 sauropod footprints were found in a mudstone layer covering a layer of gypsum. Casts 65 feet (20 m) long and 7 feet (2.1 m) wide were made and put on permanent display, first at the courthouse and finally at the Nashville City Park, while many of the original tracks were disbursed to local museums such as the Mid-America Museum in Hot Springs and the Arkansas Museum of Discovery in Little Rock. The full extent of the trackway has never been excavated.

The mascot of Nashville's HS is "The Scrappers".

William T. Dillard, founder of Dillard's, opened his first department store in Nashville. He started his successful franchise in 1938 when, with $8,000 borrowed from his father, he opened a small store in his wife's hometown of Nashville. Aside from a short period during World War II, the Dillard Company continued operating and expanding its Nashville location. In 1948, Dillard, looking for more growth prospects, sold the Nashville store and used the money, along with some outside financing, to buy controlling interest in a store in nearby Texarkana.

Jim Yates, founder of one of the largest privately owned convenience store chains, built his first E-Z Mart store in Nashville, Arkansas.

Dierks, AR: Dierks was formerly known as "Hardscrabble.” It was changed to "Dierks" after Hans Dierks, the oldest of four brothers who owned the Dierks Lumber and Coal Company. In 2007, Dierks celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding.

Tollette was established as an all-African American town by Sanford Tollette and his wife Caldonia Crofton Tollette in the 1800s.

Dorothy Shaver, born in Center Point in 1893, was the first woman in the United States to head a multimillion-dollar company, Lord & Taylor.

Schaal is an unincorporated community in Howard County, Arkansas, United States. It is located near Mineral Springs and Nashville, Arkansas.

Former US Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders was born in Schaal.

Umpire, AR: In the early 1890s a new gristmill opened in the area. There was a celebratory baseball game after which a schoolteacher addressed the crowd and suggested the name Umpire for the new post office. That is because the Umpire did an outstanding job overseeing the game.

Cossatot River: Cossatot comes from an Indian term which translates roughly to skull crusher. The Cossatot is known as a difficult (class II - IV+) whitewater stream to canoeists and kayakers and a section at Cossatot Falls in Howard County, Arkansas has been called "the most challenging section of whitewater between the Smokies and the Rockies," though there are many more challenging runs in the state of Arkansas, such as Richland Creek, Crooked Creek or the Upper Buffalo (Hailstone run).

An 11-mile (18-km) section including Cossatot Falls is designated as the Cossatot River State Park-Natural Area. Cossatot Falls is a series of back-to-back class III-IV+ rapids that drops around 40 feet in 1/8 of a mile. Rapid names are Cossatosser (class II+), Eye Opener, B.M.F. (class III), Washing Machine (class IV+), Whiplash, (class III+), and Shoulderbone (class II), with Deer Camp Rapid (class III), Devil's Hollow Rapid (class III+), and Devil's Hollow Falls (class IV) located downstream of the Falls area. Zigzag (Class III) and the Esses (class III) are other notable rapids on the Cossatot,located above the Falls.

The World War II fleet oiler USS Cossatot (AO-77) is named after this river.

[cleverhottubmiracle]

In the mid-1900s, Lord & Taylor was an American success story. What started as a small dry goods store in New York evolved into a luxury fashion destination that defined what women wore. Three-quarters of a century later, all that’s left of Lord & Taylor are memories and an unfinished website. So, what happened to Lord & Taylor? How did a brand that shaped retail disappear from people’s minds so quickly? Let’s look at the dramatic rise and fall of Lord & Taylor, and speculate on what lies ahead for this once-iconic fashion brand. The making of Lord & Taylor Lord & Taylor began in 1826 when Samuel Lord and George Washington Taylor opened a tiny shop on the lower east side of Manhattan. By the late 1800s, the shop had evolved into a full department store. Various sources cite Lord & Taylor as the oldest department store in the U.S., but it was not the first of its kind. According to the Smithsonian , that title belongs to the Marble Palace — opened in 1848 on 280 Broadway in New York by Irishman Alexander Stewart. Lord & Taylor followed the lead of Marble Palace, opening its first flagship store on Broadway in 1859. Other stores followed, creating shopping districts that would shape New York’s culture for the rest of time. Source: Canva. Lord & Taylor became an anchor store to an area known as Ladies Mile. The store enjoyed continued success for several decades, but fell into hard times after the Panic of 1873. A loan from retired partners kept the business afloat. In 1904, the company’s president Edward Hatch took Lord & Taylor public. United Dry Goods Company bought Lord & Taylor in 1910. Even as the Lord & Taylor’s ownership evolved, the company continued its path of expansion by opening an opulent flagship location in 1914 on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The building, styled in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, featured conveyor belts — a cutting edge innovation in those days — plus services catering to men. The store’s entire fourth floor carried menswear and related goods. A selling point was the men’s-only entrance that allowed guys to shop without setting eyes on any product intended for women. According to a Landmark Preservation Commission document, Architecture magazine described Lord & Taylor’s Fifth Avenue building as the “best of its class” and “a gift and a benefit” to the city. Holiday window displays The Fifth Avenue store featured a dramatic two-story entrance, with large display windows on either side. Lord & Taylor used those display areas to set up animated scenes during the holidays. Those lively holiday displays became a destination and a core piece of the brand’s identity.  Fashion destination In 1946, Dorothy Shaver was hired as president of Lord & Taylor. Shaver was the first woman to lead a major department store. Shaver transitioned Lord & Taylor into a true luxury fashion destination — while continuing to attract Manhattan foot traffic with dazzling holiday displays at the Fifth Avenue flagship store. She shut down the store’s furnishings and home collections in favor of dresses and career wear. She also opened new stores to expand the brand’s audience.  When Shaver passed away in 1959, she had laid the foundation for continued growth. The brand expanded into Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas in the 1970s. In the 1980s, Lord & Taylor kept the brand momentum going with celebrity collaborations — one with Sophia Loren — and special collections for Broadway plays. In 1986, May Department Stores purchased Lord & Taylor, converting many May Company stores into Lord & Taylor destinations.  Scandal and ownership changes By the 1990s, Lord & Taylor’s star power began to fade. The brand’s reputation took a hard hit in 2000 when security guards in a Michigan store put shopper Frederick Finley in a choke hold after accusing him of shoplifting. Finley died from his injuries.  Macy’s — then known as Federated Department Stores — bought May Company including the Lord & Taylor brand in 2005. The next year, Macy’s sold Lord & Taylor to NRDC Equity Partners. A few years later, NRDC purchased Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), which owned Saks Fifth Avenue. NRDC moved the Lord & Taylor brand into the HBC portfolio. Changing times Ultimately, changing consumer preferences solidified the end of Lord & Taylor. Stores like the Gap and Zara resonated with young shoppers who prioritized casual and affordable clothes over stuffy luxury. Lord & Taylor became an outdated relic, struggling to capture shoppers’ attention. In 2017, Lord & Taylor sold its famous flagship building to WeWork for $850 million. The store closed in 2019.  Enter Le Tote In 2019, HBC sold Lord & Taylor to fashion rental startup Le Tote for $100 million. The plan was to create synergies for both brands by mixing regular retail with fashion rentals. The leaders at Le Tote believed they could use their data expertise and technology to revive the Lord & Taylor brand. Success in the stores could then be leveraged to attract new subscribers to Le Tote. The plan failed. Just months later, a global pandemic would annihilate mall traffic and temporarily halt demand for women’s career wear. In August 2020, Lord & Taylor and Le Tote filed for bankruptcy. There were a few dozen Lord & Taylor stores remaining at that time, and all were closed in 2021. Le Tote’s CEO later admitted they didn’t realize how tough it would be to mix online and physical shopping. Read next: What happened to Le Tote? An uncertain future In 2021, Saadia Group bought the assets of Lord & Taylor and Le Tote for $12 million, relaunching the department store brand as an ecommerce shop. This effort also failed. Three years later, Saadia Group defaulted on its bank loans and the Le Tote and Lord & Taylor websites eventually disappeared. Regal Brands Global subsequently bought the Lord & Taylor name from Saadia Group. Under the leadership of Chief Brand Strategy Officer Sina Yenel, Regal Brands Global plans to relaunch Lord & Taylor as an online outlet for discount luxury apparel, plus a less expensive collection aimed at Gen Z shoppers.  Yenel says the site will go live in 2025, but it currently loads as a blank page that asks for a password.  Lord & Taylor’s return to glory Will Lord & Taylor’s next reboot be the one that sticks? I would love to see it happen, but a resurgence for this brand seems unlikely. The Lord & Taylor name has no clout with anyone under the age of 50, and there is fierce competition in the discount luxury space. The collections must hit home with the target audiences quickly and the marketing must be impactful and memorable. Those are big objectives to realize under the weight of stiff competition in the women’s ecommerce fashion space. Source link

[norajworld]

In the mid-1900s, Lord & Taylor was an American success story. What started as a small dry goods store in New York evolved into a luxury fashion destination that defined what women wore. Three-quarters of a century later, all that’s left of Lord & Taylor are memories and an unfinished website. So, what happened to Lord & Taylor? How did a brand that shaped retail disappear from people’s minds so quickly? Let’s look at the dramatic rise and fall of Lord & Taylor, and speculate on what lies ahead for this once-iconic fashion brand. The making of Lord & Taylor Lord & Taylor began in 1826 when Samuel Lord and George Washington Taylor opened a tiny shop on the lower east side of Manhattan. By the late 1800s, the shop had evolved into a full department store. Various sources cite Lord & Taylor as the oldest department store in the U.S., but it was not the first of its kind. According to the Smithsonian , that title belongs to the Marble Palace — opened in 1848 on 280 Broadway in New York by Irishman Alexander Stewart. Lord & Taylor followed the lead of Marble Palace, opening its first flagship store on Broadway in 1859. Other stores followed, creating shopping districts that would shape New York’s culture for the rest of time. Source: Canva. Lord & Taylor became an anchor store to an area known as Ladies Mile. The store enjoyed continued success for several decades, but fell into hard times after the Panic of 1873. A loan from retired partners kept the business afloat. In 1904, the company’s president Edward Hatch took Lord & Taylor public. United Dry Goods Company bought Lord & Taylor in 1910. Even as the Lord & Taylor’s ownership evolved, the company continued its path of expansion by opening an opulent flagship location in 1914 on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The building, styled in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, featured conveyor belts — a cutting edge innovation in those days — plus services catering to men. The store’s entire fourth floor carried menswear and related goods. A selling point was the men’s-only entrance that allowed guys to shop without setting eyes on any product intended for women. According to a Landmark Preservation Commission document, Architecture magazine described Lord & Taylor’s Fifth Avenue building as the “best of its class” and “a gift and a benefit” to the city. Holiday window displays The Fifth Avenue store featured a dramatic two-story entrance, with large display windows on either side. Lord & Taylor used those display areas to set up animated scenes during the holidays. Those lively holiday displays became a destination and a core piece of the brand’s identity.  Fashion destination In 1946, Dorothy Shaver was hired as president of Lord & Taylor. Shaver was the first woman to lead a major department store. Shaver transitioned Lord & Taylor into a true luxury fashion destination — while continuing to attract Manhattan foot traffic with dazzling holiday displays at the Fifth Avenue flagship store. She shut down the store’s furnishings and home collections in favor of dresses and career wear. She also opened new stores to expand the brand’s audience.  When Shaver passed away in 1959, she had laid the foundation for continued growth. The brand expanded into Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas in the 1970s. In the 1980s, Lord & Taylor kept the brand momentum going with celebrity collaborations — one with Sophia Loren — and special collections for Broadway plays. In 1986, May Department Stores purchased Lord & Taylor, converting many May Company stores into Lord & Taylor destinations.  Scandal and ownership changes By the 1990s, Lord & Taylor’s star power began to fade. The brand’s reputation took a hard hit in 2000 when security guards in a Michigan store put shopper Frederick Finley in a choke hold after accusing him of shoplifting. Finley died from his injuries.  Macy’s — then known as Federated Department Stores — bought May Company including the Lord & Taylor brand in 2005. The next year, Macy’s sold Lord & Taylor to NRDC Equity Partners. A few years later, NRDC purchased Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), which owned Saks Fifth Avenue. NRDC moved the Lord & Taylor brand into the HBC portfolio. Changing times Ultimately, changing consumer preferences solidified the end of Lord & Taylor. Stores like the Gap and Zara resonated with young shoppers who prioritized casual and affordable clothes over stuffy luxury. Lord & Taylor became an outdated relic, struggling to capture shoppers’ attention. In 2017, Lord & Taylor sold its famous flagship building to WeWork for $850 million. The store closed in 2019.  Enter Le Tote In 2019, HBC sold Lord & Taylor to fashion rental startup Le Tote for $100 million. The plan was to create synergies for both brands by mixing regular retail with fashion rentals. The leaders at Le Tote believed they could use their data expertise and technology to revive the Lord & Taylor brand. Success in the stores could then be leveraged to attract new subscribers to Le Tote. The plan failed. Just months later, a global pandemic would annihilate mall traffic and temporarily halt demand for women’s career wear. In August 2020, Lord & Taylor and Le Tote filed for bankruptcy. There were a few dozen Lord & Taylor stores remaining at that time, and all were closed in 2021. Le Tote’s CEO later admitted they didn’t realize how tough it would be to mix online and physical shopping. Read next: What happened to Le Tote? An uncertain future In 2021, Saadia Group bought the assets of Lord & Taylor and Le Tote for $12 million, relaunching the department store brand as an ecommerce shop. This effort also failed. Three years later, Saadia Group defaulted on its bank loans and the Le Tote and Lord & Taylor websites eventually disappeared. Regal Brands Global subsequently bought the Lord & Taylor name from Saadia Group. Under the leadership of Chief Brand Strategy Officer Sina Yenel, Regal Brands Global plans to relaunch Lord & Taylor as an online outlet for discount luxury apparel, plus a less expensive collection aimed at Gen Z shoppers.  Yenel says the site will go live in 2025, but it currently loads as a blank page that asks for a password.  Lord & Taylor’s return to glory Will Lord & Taylor’s next reboot be the one that sticks? I would love to see it happen, but a resurgence for this brand seems unlikely. The Lord & Taylor name has no clout with anyone under the age of 50, and there is fierce competition in the discount luxury space. The collections must hit home with the target audiences quickly and the marketing must be impactful and memorable. Those are big objectives to realize under the weight of stiff competition in the women’s ecommerce fashion space. Source link

[ellajme0]

In the mid-1900s, Lord & Taylor was an American success story. What started as a small dry goods store in New York evolved into a luxury fashion destination that defined what women wore. Three-quarters of a century later, all that’s left of Lord & Taylor are memories and an unfinished website. So, what happened to Lord & Taylor? How did a brand that shaped retail disappear from people’s minds so quickly? Let’s look at the dramatic rise and fall of Lord & Taylor, and speculate on what lies ahead for this once-iconic fashion brand. The making of Lord & Taylor Lord & Taylor began in 1826 when Samuel Lord and George Washington Taylor opened a tiny shop on the lower east side of Manhattan. By the late 1800s, the shop had evolved into a full department store. Various sources cite Lord & Taylor as the oldest department store in the U.S., but it was not the first of its kind. According to the Smithsonian , that title belongs to the Marble Palace — opened in 1848 on 280 Broadway in New York by Irishman Alexander Stewart. Lord & Taylor followed the lead of Marble Palace, opening its first flagship store on Broadway in 1859. Other stores followed, creating shopping districts that would shape New York’s culture for the rest of time. Source: Canva. Lord & Taylor became an anchor store to an area known as Ladies Mile. The store enjoyed continued success for several decades, but fell into hard times after the Panic of 1873. A loan from retired partners kept the business afloat. In 1904, the company’s president Edward Hatch took Lord & Taylor public. United Dry Goods Company bought Lord & Taylor in 1910. Even as the Lord & Taylor’s ownership evolved, the company continued its path of expansion by opening an opulent flagship location in 1914 on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The building, styled in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, featured conveyor belts — a cutting edge innovation in those days — plus services catering to men. The store’s entire fourth floor carried menswear and related goods. A selling point was the men’s-only entrance that allowed guys to shop without setting eyes on any product intended for women. According to a Landmark Preservation Commission document, Architecture magazine described Lord & Taylor’s Fifth Avenue building as the “best of its class” and “a gift and a benefit” to the city. Holiday window displays The Fifth Avenue store featured a dramatic two-story entrance, with large display windows on either side. Lord & Taylor used those display areas to set up animated scenes during the holidays. Those lively holiday displays became a destination and a core piece of the brand’s identity.  Fashion destination In 1946, Dorothy Shaver was hired as president of Lord & Taylor. Shaver was the first woman to lead a major department store. Shaver transitioned Lord & Taylor into a true luxury fashion destination — while continuing to attract Manhattan foot traffic with dazzling holiday displays at the Fifth Avenue flagship store. She shut down the store’s furnishings and home collections in favor of dresses and career wear. She also opened new stores to expand the brand’s audience.  When Shaver passed away in 1959, she had laid the foundation for continued growth. The brand expanded into Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas in the 1970s. In the 1980s, Lord & Taylor kept the brand momentum going with celebrity collaborations — one with Sophia Loren — and special collections for Broadway plays. In 1986, May Department Stores purchased Lord & Taylor, converting many May Company stores into Lord & Taylor destinations.  Scandal and ownership changes By the 1990s, Lord & Taylor’s star power began to fade. The brand’s reputation took a hard hit in 2000 when security guards in a Michigan store put shopper Frederick Finley in a choke hold after accusing him of shoplifting. Finley died from his injuries.  Macy’s — then known as Federated Department Stores — bought May Company including the Lord & Taylor brand in 2005. The next year, Macy’s sold Lord & Taylor to NRDC Equity Partners. A few years later, NRDC purchased Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), which owned Saks Fifth Avenue. NRDC moved the Lord & Taylor brand into the HBC portfolio. Changing times Ultimately, changing consumer preferences solidified the end of Lord & Taylor. Stores like the Gap and Zara resonated with young shoppers who prioritized casual and affordable clothes over stuffy luxury. Lord & Taylor became an outdated relic, struggling to capture shoppers’ attention. In 2017, Lord & Taylor sold its famous flagship building to WeWork for $850 million. The store closed in 2019.  Enter Le Tote In 2019, HBC sold Lord & Taylor to fashion rental startup Le Tote for $100 million. The plan was to create synergies for both brands by mixing regular retail with fashion rentals. The leaders at Le Tote believed they could use their data expertise and technology to revive the Lord & Taylor brand. Success in the stores could then be leveraged to attract new subscribers to Le Tote. The plan failed. Just months later, a global pandemic would annihilate mall traffic and temporarily halt demand for women’s career wear. In August 2020, Lord & Taylor and Le Tote filed for bankruptcy. There were a few dozen Lord & Taylor stores remaining at that time, and all were closed in 2021. Le Tote’s CEO later admitted they didn’t realize how tough it would be to mix online and physical shopping. Read next: What happened to Le Tote? An uncertain future In 2021, Saadia Group bought the assets of Lord & Taylor and Le Tote for $12 million, relaunching the department store brand as an ecommerce shop. This effort also failed. Three years later, Saadia Group defaulted on its bank loans and the Le Tote and Lord & Taylor websites eventually disappeared. Regal Brands Global subsequently bought the Lord & Taylor name from Saadia Group. Under the leadership of Chief Brand Strategy Officer Sina Yenel, Regal Brands Global plans to relaunch Lord & Taylor as an online outlet for discount luxury apparel, plus a less expensive collection aimed at Gen Z shoppers.  Yenel says the site will go live in 2025, but it currently loads as a blank page that asks for a password.  Lord & Taylor’s return to glory Will Lord & Taylor’s next reboot be the one that sticks? I would love to see it happen, but a resurgence for this brand seems unlikely. The Lord & Taylor name has no clout with anyone under the age of 50, and there is fierce competition in the discount luxury space. The collections must hit home with the target audiences quickly and the marketing must be impactful and memorable. Those are big objectives to realize under the weight of stiff competition in the women’s ecommerce fashion space. Source link

[chilimili212]

In the mid-1900s, Lord & Taylor was an American success story. What started as a small dry goods store in New York evolved into a luxury fashion destination that defined what women wore. Three-quarters of a century later, all that’s left of Lord & Taylor are memories and an unfinished website. So, what happened to Lord & Taylor? How did a brand that shaped retail disappear from people’s minds so quickly? Let’s look at the dramatic rise and fall of Lord & Taylor, and speculate on what lies ahead for this once-iconic fashion brand. The making of Lord & Taylor Lord & Taylor began in 1826 when Samuel Lord and George Washington Taylor opened a tiny shop on the lower east side of Manhattan. By the late 1800s, the shop had evolved into a full department store. Various sources cite Lord & Taylor as the oldest department store in the U.S., but it was not the first of its kind. According to the Smithsonian , that title belongs to the Marble Palace — opened in 1848 on 280 Broadway in New York by Irishman Alexander Stewart. Lord & Taylor followed the lead of Marble Palace, opening its first flagship store on Broadway in 1859. Other stores followed, creating shopping districts that would shape New York’s culture for the rest of time. Source: Canva. Lord & Taylor became an anchor store to an area known as Ladies Mile. The store enjoyed continued success for several decades, but fell into hard times after the Panic of 1873. A loan from retired partners kept the business afloat. In 1904, the company’s president Edward Hatch took Lord & Taylor public. United Dry Goods Company bought Lord & Taylor in 1910. Even as the Lord & Taylor’s ownership evolved, the company continued its path of expansion by opening an opulent flagship location in 1914 on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The building, styled in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, featured conveyor belts — a cutting edge innovation in those days — plus services catering to men. The store’s entire fourth floor carried menswear and related goods. A selling point was the men’s-only entrance that allowed guys to shop without setting eyes on any product intended for women. According to a Landmark Preservation Commission document, Architecture magazine described Lord & Taylor’s Fifth Avenue building as the “best of its class” and “a gift and a benefit” to the city. Holiday window displays The Fifth Avenue store featured a dramatic two-story entrance, with large display windows on either side. Lord & Taylor used those display areas to set up animated scenes during the holidays. Those lively holiday displays became a destination and a core piece of the brand’s identity.  Fashion destination In 1946, Dorothy Shaver was hired as president of Lord & Taylor. Shaver was the first woman to lead a major department store. Shaver transitioned Lord & Taylor into a true luxury fashion destination — while continuing to attract Manhattan foot traffic with dazzling holiday displays at the Fifth Avenue flagship store. She shut down the store’s furnishings and home collections in favor of dresses and career wear. She also opened new stores to expand the brand’s audience.  When Shaver passed away in 1959, she had laid the foundation for continued growth. The brand expanded into Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas in the 1970s. In the 1980s, Lord & Taylor kept the brand momentum going with celebrity collaborations — one with Sophia Loren — and special collections for Broadway plays. In 1986, May Department Stores purchased Lord & Taylor, converting many May Company stores into Lord & Taylor destinations.  Scandal and ownership changes By the 1990s, Lord & Taylor’s star power began to fade. The brand’s reputation took a hard hit in 2000 when security guards in a Michigan store put shopper Frederick Finley in a choke hold after accusing him of shoplifting. Finley died from his injuries.  Macy’s — then known as Federated Department Stores — bought May Company including the Lord & Taylor brand in 2005. The next year, Macy’s sold Lord & Taylor to NRDC Equity Partners. A few years later, NRDC purchased Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), which owned Saks Fifth Avenue. NRDC moved the Lord & Taylor brand into the HBC portfolio. Changing times Ultimately, changing consumer preferences solidified the end of Lord & Taylor. Stores like the Gap and Zara resonated with young shoppers who prioritized casual and affordable clothes over stuffy luxury. Lord & Taylor became an outdated relic, struggling to capture shoppers’ attention. In 2017, Lord & Taylor sold its famous flagship building to WeWork for $850 million. The store closed in 2019.  Enter Le Tote In 2019, HBC sold Lord & Taylor to fashion rental startup Le Tote for $100 million. The plan was to create synergies for both brands by mixing regular retail with fashion rentals. The leaders at Le Tote believed they could use their data expertise and technology to revive the Lord & Taylor brand. Success in the stores could then be leveraged to attract new subscribers to Le Tote. The plan failed. Just months later, a global pandemic would annihilate mall traffic and temporarily halt demand for women’s career wear. In August 2020, Lord & Taylor and Le Tote filed for bankruptcy. There were a few dozen Lord & Taylor stores remaining at that time, and all were closed in 2021. Le Tote’s CEO later admitted they didn’t realize how tough it would be to mix online and physical shopping. Read next: What happened to Le Tote? An uncertain future In 2021, Saadia Group bought the assets of Lord & Taylor and Le Tote for $12 million, relaunching the department store brand as an ecommerce shop. This effort also failed. Three years later, Saadia Group defaulted on its bank loans and the Le Tote and Lord & Taylor websites eventually disappeared. Regal Brands Global subsequently bought the Lord & Taylor name from Saadia Group. Under the leadership of Chief Brand Strategy Officer Sina Yenel, Regal Brands Global plans to relaunch Lord & Taylor as an online outlet for discount luxury apparel, plus a less expensive collection aimed at Gen Z shoppers.  Yenel says the site will go live in 2025, but it currently loads as a blank page that asks for a password.  Lord & Taylor’s return to glory Will Lord & Taylor’s next reboot be the one that sticks? I would love to see it happen, but a resurgence for this brand seems unlikely. The Lord & Taylor name has no clout with anyone under the age of 50, and there is fierce competition in the discount luxury space. The collections must hit home with the target audiences quickly and the marketing must be impactful and memorable. Those are big objectives to realize under the weight of stiff competition in the women’s ecommerce fashion space. Source link

[doubledaybooks]

Elise Shaver moved to NYC with her sister, Dorothy Shaver, in the 1920s. Elise, an artist, and her sister were inspired by the success of the Kewpie Doll and crafted their own dolls out of bandage cotton and wrote stories to accompany the dolls. Dorothy sold her sister's "Little Shaver" Dolls to Lord & Taylor and eventually became the first female CEO to earn a $1 Million dollar salary.

Learn more about the sisters in WHEN WOMEN RAN FIFTH AVENUE by Julie Satow.

[oliviajoyice21]

In the mid-1900s, Lord & Taylor was an American success story. What started as a small dry goods store in New York evolved into a luxury fashion destination that defined what women wore. Three-quarters of a century later, all that’s left of Lord & Taylor are memories and an unfinished website. So, what happened to Lord & Taylor? How did a brand that shaped retail disappear from people’s minds so quickly? Let’s look at the dramatic rise and fall of Lord & Taylor, and speculate on what lies ahead for this once-iconic fashion brand. The making of Lord & Taylor Lord & Taylor began in 1826 when Samuel Lord and George Washington Taylor opened a tiny shop on the lower east side of Manhattan. By the late 1800s, the shop had evolved into a full department store. Various sources cite Lord & Taylor as the oldest department store in the U.S., but it was not the first of its kind. According to the Smithsonian , that title belongs to the Marble Palace — opened in 1848 on 280 Broadway in New York by Irishman Alexander Stewart. Lord & Taylor followed the lead of Marble Palace, opening its first flagship store on Broadway in 1859. Other stores followed, creating shopping districts that would shape New York’s culture for the rest of time. Source: Canva. Lord & Taylor became an anchor store to an area known as Ladies Mile. The store enjoyed continued success for several decades, but fell into hard times after the Panic of 1873. A loan from retired partners kept the business afloat. In 1904, the company’s president Edward Hatch took Lord & Taylor public. United Dry Goods Company bought Lord & Taylor in 1910. Even as the Lord & Taylor’s ownership evolved, the company continued its path of expansion by opening an opulent flagship location in 1914 on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The building, styled in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, featured conveyor belts — a cutting edge innovation in those days — plus services catering to men. The store’s entire fourth floor carried menswear and related goods. A selling point was the men’s-only entrance that allowed guys to shop without setting eyes on any product intended for women. According to a Landmark Preservation Commission document, Architecture magazine described Lord & Taylor’s Fifth Avenue building as the “best of its class” and “a gift and a benefit” to the city. Holiday window displays The Fifth Avenue store featured a dramatic two-story entrance, with large display windows on either side. Lord & Taylor used those display areas to set up animated scenes during the holidays. Those lively holiday displays became a destination and a core piece of the brand’s identity.  Fashion destination In 1946, Dorothy Shaver was hired as president of Lord & Taylor. Shaver was the first woman to lead a major department store. Shaver transitioned Lord & Taylor into a true luxury fashion destination — while continuing to attract Manhattan foot traffic with dazzling holiday displays at the Fifth Avenue flagship store. She shut down the store’s furnishings and home collections in favor of dresses and career wear. She also opened new stores to expand the brand’s audience.  When Shaver passed away in 1959, she had laid the foundation for continued growth. The brand expanded into Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas in the 1970s. In the 1980s, Lord & Taylor kept the brand momentum going with celebrity collaborations — one with Sophia Loren — and special collections for Broadway plays. In 1986, May Department Stores purchased Lord & Taylor, converting many May Company stores into Lord & Taylor destinations.  Scandal and ownership changes By the 1990s, Lord & Taylor’s star power began to fade. The brand’s reputation took a hard hit in 2000 when security guards in a Michigan store put shopper Frederick Finley in a choke hold after accusing him of shoplifting. Finley died from his injuries.  Macy’s — then known as Federated Department Stores — bought May Company including the Lord & Taylor brand in 2005. The next year, Macy’s sold Lord & Taylor to NRDC Equity Partners. A few years later, NRDC purchased Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), which owned Saks Fifth Avenue. NRDC moved the Lord & Taylor brand into the HBC portfolio. Changing times Ultimately, changing consumer preferences solidified the end of Lord & Taylor. Stores like the Gap and Zara resonated with young shoppers who prioritized casual and affordable clothes over stuffy luxury. Lord & Taylor became an outdated relic, struggling to capture shoppers’ attention. In 2017, Lord & Taylor sold its famous flagship building to WeWork for $850 million. The store closed in 2019.  Enter Le Tote In 2019, HBC sold Lord & Taylor to fashion rental startup Le Tote for $100 million. The plan was to create synergies for both brands by mixing regular retail with fashion rentals. The leaders at Le Tote believed they could use their data expertise and technology to revive the Lord & Taylor brand. Success in the stores could then be leveraged to attract new subscribers to Le Tote. The plan failed. Just months later, a global pandemic would annihilate mall traffic and temporarily halt demand for women’s career wear. In August 2020, Lord & Taylor and Le Tote filed for bankruptcy. There were a few dozen Lord & Taylor stores remaining at that time, and all were closed in 2021. Le Tote’s CEO later admitted they didn’t realize how tough it would be to mix online and physical shopping. Read next: What happened to Le Tote? An uncertain future In 2021, Saadia Group bought the assets of Lord & Taylor and Le Tote for $12 million, relaunching the department store brand as an ecommerce shop. This effort also failed. Three years later, Saadia Group defaulted on its bank loans and the Le Tote and Lord & Taylor websites eventually disappeared. Regal Brands Global subsequently bought the Lord & Taylor name from Saadia Group. Under the leadership of Chief Brand Strategy Officer Sina Yenel, Regal Brands Global plans to relaunch Lord & Taylor as an online outlet for discount luxury apparel, plus a less expensive collection aimed at Gen Z shoppers.  Yenel says the site will go live in 2025, but it currently loads as a blank page that asks for a password.  Lord & Taylor’s return to glory Will Lord & Taylor’s next reboot be the one that sticks? I would love to see it happen, but a resurgence for this brand seems unlikely. The Lord & Taylor name has no clout with anyone under the age of 50, and there is fierce competition in the discount luxury space. The collections must hit home with the target audiences quickly and the marketing must be impactful and memorable. Those are big objectives to realize under the weight of stiff competition in the women’s ecommerce fashion space. Source link

[abwwia]

Dorothy Shaver (Jul 29, 1893 – Jun 29, 1959) was a well known leader of the fashion industry.

Shaver graduated from high school in 1910 at the age of 17. She then earned a teaching certificate from the University of Arkansas. Shaver returned to Mena and began teaching seventh grade. Her teaching career ended abruptly in May 1914, when the local board refused to renew the contracts of Shaver and three other single female teachers because they had attended an unchaperoned dance. (?!?)

....

Shaver served as president of Lord & Taylor until her death in 1959. By the time of her death, sales at Lord & Taylor reached $100 million a year. via Wikipedia

#DorothyShaver #FashionHerStory #historyoffashion #FashionIcon #PalianShow

[lrandconkdors]

Just heard about an upcoming platform fighter where all the playable characters are based on public domain characters. Infatuated less with the advertised concept and more with the execution. This is no average indie fighter... it's an indie toon fighter - a sub-genre term I just coined to describe fighters where every attack is basically just a visual gag with a hitbox attached - like Darkstalkers, or Rakugakids, or Cuphead-if-you-ignore-the-part-where-it's-not-a-fighting-game. (It's a somewhat under-repped subgenre.) Instead of simply portraying these old characters as our society generally remembers them, RoyalFree uses these strange crack-cocaine caricatures, except replace "crack cocaine" with whatever drug makes the world look cuter. They made Sweeney Todd a walking electric shaver / barbershop pole with a cape and pointy teeth. You have Dorothy from Wizard of Oz as a little dog (not Dorothy's little dog from Wizard of Oz like my brain first autocorrected it to) with a command grab where she grows an elephant's trunk to grab enemies and then stabs them by sprouting giant tusks. Grade-A nuttiness on display. I used to pray for games like this.

Additional notes:

Keep an eye out during the reveal trailers and you may notice each character is apparently played by a fictional actor. I don't have any opinion on this yet. Kind of waiting to see whether they do anything with this element.

There was this movie that reimagined Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends as monsters, and this other time somebody announced a horror parody of Mickey Mouse's first cartoon feature, while the mouse's semi-publicization was still hot in the news cycle, and as a result, every video @/RoyaltyFreeForAll uploads has at least one Jeffrey commenting, "Finally 🙄, a project that turns public domain characters into anything other than horror movie garbage," demonstrating Blood and Honey has fatally wounded the way ppl think when they hear the phrase "public domain"

The inclusion of Lilith, a mythological figure who shows up in pop culture all the time, yet I needed someone to explain who she was supposed to be, reveals how much potential the public-domain toybox holds, but I don't know if this much potential is a wholly positive thing. Royal Foy'll might be destined to the same issue as MultiVersus where no matter how many characters it adds, the candidate pool is so large that everyone will still have one or two characters they would have chosen for the game.

The current reigning queen of Missed Potential by a Character's Design is Mother Goose, who is described as the ancestor of every bird ever, and employs a flock of avian-centric attacks (fave is the feather-formed crossbow). But it's a bummer that nothing in her arsenal acknowledges her being pretty much the mascot of nursery rhymes. The team forwent the endless possibilities at hand wing, and instead created an OC whose entire thing is just Being A Bird.

With the newest character revealed, Roifuri's devs have- okay that's JUST Orcane. Humanity just invented Orcane again! maybe with a bit of Ranno mixed in as well? First Marvel Rivals rips off Orcane, and now this?! Im eating it up!! more games rip off Orcane please!! anyways, my initial reaction was 'why not Moby Dick?' I questioned how they could pass up the ferocious White Whale with a Tale in favor of Shady Photograph of a Bathing Lizard.. but on second thought, that might have given Aether Studios actual grounds to sue..

To be clear, there is a lore reason as to why Dorothy is a dog, hidden in the description of her moveset guide. To make another MultiVersus comparison, it reminds me of the blurb they give Shaggy Rogers to explain why he's a Saiyan in this one. To be less clear, the official website gives a seemingly contradicting origin story for the pupper.. I also want to re-spotlight the elephant move, whose origin of existence is stated to be "it's frickin cool" and like? they're not wrong??

wait hold on, i have a thought about that "actor" thing now. Why do the actors' names, on average, sound more fictitious then those of the characters they play? "'Sweetpea' as lilith" "'Knighty Knight' as lancelot" are you listening to yourself right now??? Imagine if like uhhhh. Antonio Banderas' legal name were Dr. Dashing or sumtg and he voiced a dapper swordskitten named umm. "Ramón." like "we did the story of Ramón for our school play" "oh you have to see Ramón's Last Wish it's better than you'd think" actually now that I mention it Puss in Boots would go hard in this game. you literally couldn't mess up the character if you tried

[docrotten]

PIN (1988) – Episode 253 – Decades Of Horror 1980s

“Where did you learn to do that?” Learn to do what? Oh…that. Join your faithful Grue Crew – Chad Hunt, Bill Mulligan, and Jeff Mohr along with guest host Ralph Miller – as they visit another strange twist on the ventriloquist/dummy subgenre called PIN (1988).

Decades of Horror 1980s Episode 253 – PIN (1988)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! Click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

Gruesome Magazine is partnering with the WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL (https://wickedhorrortv.com/) which now includes video episodes of Decades of Horror 1980s and is available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, and its online website across all OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop.

Isolated by his strange parents, Leon finds solace in an imaginary friend, which happens to be an anatomy doll from his father-the-doctor’s office. Unfortunately, the doll begins to take over Leon’s life, and his sister’s life as well.

  Directed by: Sandor Stern

Writing Credits: Sandor Stern (screenplay); Andrew Neiderman (based on the April 1981 novel by)

Selected Cast:

David Hewlett as Leon

Cynthia Preston as Ursula (as Cyndy Preston)

Terry O’Quinn as Dr. Linden

Bronwen Mantel as Mrs. Linden

John Pyper-Ferguson as Stan Fraker (as John Ferguson)

Helene Udy as Marcia Bateman

Patricia Collins as Aunt Dorothy

Steven Bednarski as Leon – Age 13

Katie Shingler as Ursula – Age 11

Jacob Tierney as Leon – Age 7

Michelle Anderson as Ursula – Age 5

Joan Austen as Nurse Spalding

Jamie Stern as Eddie Morris (as James Stern)

David Gow as Officer Wilson

Terrence Labrosse as Dr. Bell

Aline Vandrine as Mrs. Shaver

Joanna Noyes as Mrs. Henry

Andrew Carter as Andy

Leif Anderson as Dave

Joel Johnson as Jack

Shawn Johnson as Tim

Robin MacEachern as Richie

Jonathan Banks as PIN (voice)

Beware the anatomy doll! Ralph Miller III joins Jeff, Bill, and Chad for a look back at PIN (1988) from director Sandor Stern. The cast includes David Hewlett (Scanners II: The New Order, Cube), Cynthia Preston (The Brain, Prom Night III: The Last Kiss), and Terry O’Quinn (Silver Bullet, The Stepfather, Lost). While it struggled to find an audience upon its initial release, critics praised PIN as well-made, bizarre, and disturbing. Fangoria would later feature it in its “101 Best Horror Films You’ve Never Seen.” Now, it’s time for the Grue-Crew to revisit the film and share their thoughts.

At the time of this writing, PIN is available to stream from YouTube.

Every two weeks, Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1980s podcast will cover another horror film from the 1980s. The next episode’s film, moving into our Grue Believer Celebration Shenanigans month and chosen by guest host Scott Wells, will be The Queen of Black Magic (1981), an Indonesian horror film quoted as being an inspiration to modern-day Indonesian filmmakers such as Kimo Stamboel and Joko Anwar. You can check this one out on YouTube.

Please let them know how they’re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans – so leave them a message or comment on the Gruesome Magazine Youtube channel, on the Gruesome Magazine website, or email the Decades of Horror 1980s podcast hosts at feedback@gruesomemagazine.com.

Check out this episode!

[historical-nonfiction]

After the stock market crash in 1929, American department stores had a conundrum. How could they sell fashion and stay in business in a country that was experiencing such a severe economic depression? There were various answers to that question. Some stores went high-end, trying to tempt women with the most glamorous and expensive looking clothes. Other stores went bargain basement, selling as cheap as possible. Neither approach worked very well.

In 1932 Lord and Taylor, led by Dorothy Shaver, tried something different: promoting American fashion designers as American fashion designers. Until then, French fashion was dominant, and everyone worked for French fashion houses or copied their products. But under Shaver's direction, American fashion became desirable for being American. Between 1932 and 1939, Shaver's presentations featured the practical sportswear creations of more than sixty designers. These designers espoused a new "American Look" which was made up of interchangeable separates, in simple designs, which could look good at multiple types of events.

This was revolutionary. Today, it is hard to grasp how much of a jump this was, but before the American Look, fashion was about selling women complete looks (usually a dress, perhaps with a matching jacket) which could be worn at specific types of events. It was assumed chic women would change at least twice a day, so their outfits could match their activities, and that whatever they were doing their dress would not get dirty or sweaty. The American Look did away with that.

The American lady at top is from 1935. Notice how her jacket and printed silk top are separates, able to be mixed and matched.

[pulpsandcomics2]

“Amazing Stories”  August 1946    cover by H. W. McCauley

The Sea People by Richard S. Shaver

March of the Mercury Men by Don Wilcox

The Gift by Berkeley Livingstone 

Some Are Not Men by John and Dorothy de Courcy

Bothon by Henry S. Whitehead

New Evidence for Atlantis by Vincent H. Gaddis

[doubledaybooks]

Vintage Lord & Taylor ads that introduced shoppers to American designers. Most stores were taking inspiration from Paris, but Dorothy Shaver put American designers at the center of the store during WWII.

Learn more about the glamorous history of deparmant stores in WHEN WOMEN RAN FIFTH AVENUE by Julie Satow.