JULY 2009: "Bendel branching out to Short Hills". Limited Brands Inc. is betting a lot of Jersey girls are also "Bendel’s girls" and is opening a branch of the Fifth Avenue fashion icon at The Mall at Short Hills.

That store will be one of five Henri Bendel shopping-center-based stores set to open this fall, a push by Bendel parent Limited brands to expand the reach of the tony brand. But the mall stores, as well as the flagship Manhattan store, also are heading in a new fashion direction and dropping designer clothes to focus exclusively on accessories.

Bendel is opening stores at a time when luxury consumers have drastically cut back on their spending. A recent report by luxury research firm Unity Marketing found that although consumer confidence among luxury shoppers rose dramatically during the second quarter, spending fell 3.2 percent.

But Ed Bucciarelli, president and CEO of Henri Bendel, said the slow economy also offers some advantages. Attractive mall locations have been "easy to come by," he said, and the economy "gives us a perfect opportunity to work out all the kinks in the business model, so when the economy turns around we’ll be ready." Also, he said, "accessories are a little bit more recession-proof."

Fashion analyst Marshal Cohen of The NPD Group called the new direction a smart move. "It allows them to take the Bendel brand and really move it into a direction that is more oriented to where the consumer’s head is at, and their pocketbook is as well," he said. The mall stores will carry less-expensive merchandise than that found at the New York store but still have the Bendel’s cachet.

Cohen said the merchandise in the Bendel’s mall store—jewelry, beauty products and accessories—"are the things that are really going to rebound faster than the apparel sector."

The store won’t be Bendel’s first foray in New Jersey. Bendel opened an ultra-deluxe mall version of the New York store at Garden State Plaza in Paramus in 1996, as part of what was designed to be a luxury wing at the shopping center. That store closed two years later. The new stores are quite different from the shops the company opened in the ‘90’s, at the Plaza and elsewhere. The Plaza store was 15,000 square feet and was intended to be a smaller version of the New York location. The new stores will be 2,000 square feet or smaller, and sell only handbags, jewelry, fragrances and other accessories.

The luxury retailer, once known for introducing designers such as Coco Chanel to New York’s affluent shoppers, announced this spring that it would stop selling clothing in its Fifth Avenue flagship, and focus on more profitable accessories. While the New York store will continue to carry designer accessories, the suburban sites will only sell Bendel-branded merchandise, much of it bearing the signature brown and white stripe design the store has used on its shopping bags since the first New York location opening in 1895.

In choosing locations, Bucciarelli said, "We like to put them where we think our Bendel girl is shopping." The Mall at Short Hills "is one of the premier fashion malls in the country, and when we look at the types of stores in that mall, there’s a clear indication that our girl is shopping there."

The Bendel’s girls is not technically a girl. Bucciarelli describes her as a "young, hip, urban customer," ages 26 to 35, who is "very interested in the new and the next."

The Bendel’s brand, however, is attracting teenage customers because of the television show "Gossip Girl".

Henri Bendel
History: French milliner Henri Bendel opened his New York store in 1895. It was the first retailer to bring the designs of Coco Chanel to the United States, and for more than a century has been known for introducing designers to New York’s fashionistas. Limited Brands, the apparel conglomerate that owns Victoria’s Secret bought the company in 1986. Bendel announced during the spring that it will stop selling clothing and focus on accessories.
Stores: In addition to the New York flagship on Fifth Avenue, the company operates five stores in suburban malls.
What’s next: The company plans to open five suburban stores in upscale shopping centers this fall, including a shop at The Mall at Short Hills.