1907–1949 Herbert Marcus Sr., a former buyer with Dallas'
Sanger Brothers department store, had left his previous job to found a new business with his sister
Carrie Marcus Neiman and her husband,
Abraham Lincoln Neiman, then employees of Sanger Brothers competitor
A. Harris and Co. In 1907, the trio had () from the successful sales-promotion firm they had built in
Atlanta, Georgia, and two potential investments of funds. Rather than take a chance on an unknown "sugary soda pop business," the three entrepreneurs rejected the fledgling
Coca-Cola company and chose instead to return to Dallas to establish a retail business. For this reason, early company CEO Peb Atera was quoted in 1957 as saying in jest that Neiman Marcus was "founded on bad business judgment." The store, established on September 10, 1907, was lavishly furnished and stocked with clothing of a quality not commonly found in Texas. Within a few weeks, the store's initial inventory, mostly acquired on a buying trip to New York made by Carrie, was completely sold out. Oil-rich Texans, welcoming the opportunity to flaunt their wealth in more sophisticated fashion than was previously possible, flocked to the new store. In spite of the
Panic of 1907 set off only a few weeks after its opening, Neiman Marcus was instantly successful, and its first several years of operation were quite profitable. In 1914, a fire destroyed the Neiman Marcus store and all of its merchandise. A temporary store was opened for 17 days. By the end of 1914, Neiman Marcus opened at its new, permanent location at the corner of Main Street and Ervay Street. With the opening of the flagship
Neiman Marcus Building, the store increased its product selection to include accessories,
lingerie, and children's clothing, as well as expanding the women's apparel department. In its first year at the new building, Neiman Marcus recorded a profit of $40,000 on sales of $700,000, nearly twice the totals reached in its last year at the original location. The store staged a show called "One Hundred Years of Texas Fashions" in 1936 in honor of the
centennial of
Texas's independence from Mexico. A later profile of the store, "Neiman Marcus of Texas", described the "grandiose and elaborate" gala, noting: "It was on this occasion that one of the most critical among the store's guests, Mrs. Edna Woolman Chase, editor of
Vogue, expressing the sentiment of the store's starry-eyed clientele, told the local press: In 1929, the store began offering menswear. During the 1930s and 1940s, Neiman Marcus began to include less-expensive clothing lines along with its high-end items, in response to the
Great Depression and following war years. Between 1942 and 1944, sales at Neiman Marcus grew from $6 million to $11 million. The 1950s saw the addition of a $1.6 million store at 8300
Preston Road in the
Preston Center; the location been occupied by a Tootsies store since the 1990s. It was a store "inspired by the art and culture of Southwestern Indians" and "colors ... copied from Indian weaving, pottery, and sand paintings". The themed decor included
Kachina figures on colored-glass murals and an
Alexander Calder mobile named "Mariposa," the Spanish word for butterfly. Art likewise was used as inspiration for Stanley Marcus' seasonal campaigns to solicit new colors in fabrics, as he did the year that he borrowed 20
Paul Gauguin paintings — many of which had never been publicly exhibited — from collectors around the world and had the vivid colors translated into dyes for wool, silk, and leather. Area teachers cited the Gauguin exhibits as spurring a dramatic increase in art study. In the 1950s and 1960s,
Gittings operated a portrait studio in Neiman Marcus. Clients included
Hope Portocarrero,
Lyndon Johnson,
Howard Hughes, and the
Shah of Iran,
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family. A late 1960s Christmas Book featured portraits of
Wyatt Cooper, his wife
Gloria Vanderbilt, and children Carter and
Anderson Cooper. The company continued its extravagant marketing efforts (including the launch of His and Her gifts in the famous Christmas Book) with the inauguration of Fortnight in 1957. The Fortnight was an annual presentation of fashions and culture from a particular country, held in late October and early November of each year, and was one of the most anticipated events in Dallas. It brought fashion, dignitaries, celebrities, exotic food and extravagant celebrations to the downtown store for 29 years. In 1955, Neiman Marcus acquired Ben Wolfman, Inc. which operated a 9-story store, The Fashion, in
Downtown Houston. Wolfman stayed on to run the store, which became branch of Neiman Marcus, the first store outside the
Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. The freestanding store was later replaced with a new anchor store located in the
Houston Galleria in 1970. In 1965 the Preston Center store was closed and a new store, more than twice as big, was opened at NorthPark Center. Another branch in Fort Worth was also opened. By 1967 the four Neiman Marcus stores in operation were generating annual sales of $58.5 million, and the company's profit for that year was in excess of $2 million. In 1987 Bergdorf Goodman was acquired by the Neiman Marcus Group. In the 1980s, the hyphenated spelling of the company name ("Neiman-Marcus") was abandoned. 's
Copley Place, set to close in April 2026.
2000–2010 Stanley Marcus died on January 22, 2002. He had served as president and chairman of the board for the company. Marcus had been the architect behind the fashion shows, New York advertising for a strictly regional chain, in-store art exhibits, and the Christmas catalog with its outlandish His-and-Hers gifts, including
vicuña wool coats, a pair of airplanes, "
Noah's Ark" (including pairs of animals), camels, and live tigers. Over the last 20 years, ownership of Neiman Marcus has passed through several hands. In June 1987, the company was
spun off from its retail parent,
Carter Hawley Hale Stores, and became a publicly listed company.
General Cinema, later to become
Harcourt General, still had a roughly 60% controlling interest until 1999, when Neiman Marcus was fully spun off from its
parent company. On May 2, 2005, Neiman Marcus Group was the subject of a
leveraged buyout (LBO), selling itself to two
private equity firms,
Texas Pacific Group and
Warburg Pincus. The "Neiman-Marcus Collection," comprising early account books, advertising and Christmas Catalog layouts, files on charity activities, past awards and presentations, and a collection of Stanley Marcus's personal memorabilia, among many other items, is located in the Texas & Dallas History & Archives Division, 7th Floor, Main Library, Dallas Public Library, where it may be consulted by researchers.
2010–2019 In August 2013, ''
Women's Wear Daily'' reported Neiman Marcus Group was preparing for an
initial public offering of its stock. In October 2013, the Neiman Marcus Group was sold for $6 billion to
Ares Management and the
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. In August 2015, the company again announced it was preparing for an initial public offering. In late 2015 Neiman Marcus became a stand-alone company. In November 2013 the firm discovered a 25-carat
rough diamond off Namibia's coast, which was valued with a reserve price tag of $1.85 million. The diamond was referred to as the "Nam Diamond". In 2018 Geoffroy van Raemdonck replaced Karen Katz as CEO. In April 2019, Neiman Marcus acquired a minority stake in
Fashionphile, an online resale platform for handbags, jewelry and accessories.
2020–present mall in
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania Neiman Marcus Group, Ltd. LLC and 23 affiliated debtors filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the
United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in May 2020. The debtors requested joint administration of the cases under Case No. 20-32519. According to the company's CEO, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, the filing was a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The company's website, mytheresa.com, was not part of the bankruptcy. At the end of September 2020, Neiman Marcus exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and as of 2022 is owned by a consortium of investment firms (
Davidson Kempner Capital Management,
Sixth Street Partners and
Pacific Investment Management). In July 2021,
mytheresa was spun off and filed for IPO on the
NYSE, valuing it at $2.2 billion which increased to $3 billion during the first day of trading. In August 2020, it announced the closing of six stores:
Mazza Gallerie in
Washington D.C.;
Natick Mall in
Natick, MA;
Hudson Yards in
New York City;
The Galleria at Fort Lauderdale;
Worth Avenue in
Palm Beach, Florida; and
Downtown Bellevue near
Seattle. In June 2022, Neiman Marcus Group reported their highest sales volume in almost half of their stores, and sales of their 20 best-selling brands grew by 70% above pre-
COVID pandemic levels in 2019. The company has also been attracting younger customers, with the average age falling by seven years from pre-pandemic levels, from the mid-40s to the high-30s. In December 2024, Neiman Marcus was acquired as part of the $2.7B
Neiman Marcus Group acquisition by
Saks Global. In February 2025, Neiman Marcus announced it would close its flagship store in Downtown Dallas on March 31, 2025, after nearly 120 years. After Dallas city officials intervened the store remains open. In September 2025 it was announced that
The Shops at Willow Bend store would close in January 2027. On January 14, 2026, Saks Global filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after struggling with heavy debt relying on its acquisition and merger of Neiman Marcus. The company also blamed a rapid consumer shift in luxury goods due to inflating prices. On February 10, 2026, Saks Global announced it will be closing eight full-line Saks Fifth Avenue Stores, and one Neiman Marcus Store, the Boston (Copley Place) location. This left Massachusetts with no Neiman Marcus stores after it previously had two. == Timeline of department store openings ==