Speaking as a current NYC resident - department stores like Macy's by Madison Square Garden are doing great. Back home in Maine, though, department stores are dead and gone. The one in my hometown closed quite a few years ago. Malls are one thing, but department stores just can't compete with more artisanal experiences or online storefronts, in my opinion.

This article popped up the other day. Although I do not know the store, I recognized the elements that most of us see (or saw) in Brooks Brothers, for example. Whether Boyd's is an anomaly, I can't say.

http://www.businessinsider.com/sears-jcpenney-stores-close-but-boyds-thrives-2018-6

Awesome article farrago! I recently read an old NYT article about Brooks Brothers (early 1990s I think, M&S era but when they still pretended they cared) which talked about how shocking it was when they installed an elevator. This seems like a similar vibe. Might have to go down to Philly sometime just to see what the environment is like in there...

I was in Albuquerque for the Christmas holiday this past winter, and went to Dillard's, one of the last big department store chains in the US. It was really sad, and obvious why it's not succeeding. Each area of the floor is for a different brand, but some were really sparse, some hadn't been changed at all since the last time I was there (a year or more previously), and then some areas had tables buried under messy piles of clothes, not organized well at all. Not many staff walking around. It was depressing, and it wasn't even all that empty of customers.

I think farrago's article, and the old Brooks Brothers experience, sets those kinds of stores apart because care has obviously been taken with the product, and the staff are obviously the ones who care. You can have great staff, but if the store is a shambles because of higher-ups, it's no good; conversely, you can have great product, but if the staff doesn't care about it, you won't either.

Unfortunately, most large stores don't have the resources (or probably the applicant pool) to offer staff trained properly fit, alter, etc., or even to be knowledgeable about the product. That's what small stores can do better, and that's what we're seeing more and more.

J. Press is an example of a large(r) store which has retained its old-world sales environment, but part of that may be projection on the part of traditional customers rather than complete reality. The LL Bean store in Freeport is a department store still, with a bunch of different areas and specialties, but the staff quality has tanked in recent years.

I have no answer or prediction to what will happen with them (obviously a lot of shit disappearing.  Suburban malls are depressing. 

I do know that at this point in my life I've lived long enough that I know I can't predict shit.  But I like department stores.  Esp. now that there are fewer.  Back in the old days, I'd maybe go to Filenes basement and never find anything.  I was always way too picky.    At one point I even felt that Brooks was too big and would only hit Press, and Andover and a few others. 

A memory:  the first time I fell in love with a piece of clothing that I wanted to buy was a pair of kelly (or was it a really rich and deep Florida lime) green Brooks Brothers trousers.  I was with my father.  He wouldn't buy them for me.  I don't remember how much they were but the cost seemed so astronomical for a kid.  Maybe I was 7 or 8.  My son wanted a cord jacket from Brooks (we were getting him some shirts and ties).  He was maybe 7 or 8 -- and I wouldn't buy him the cord jacket (he had a blue blazer and that was good enough).  He cried and really wanted it.  I kind of respect his sense of loss.  It was a beautiful jacket.  And I felt he was passionate about that as an aesthetic object rather than just having a cry over not getting his way or having to have something.

^ Good. I'd rather see Brooks stay in markets where it has a customer base rather than try too hard to expand into places that don't like the look, watering down the products in the process. (He says, as if this hasn't already happened.)