We all love a sale. Whether you’re snapping up school uniform shirts from M&S or getting £8,400 off a Balmain mini dress at Harrods, the thrill of a bargain is always exciting. But how many of us know that the concept of the seasonal sale was the brainchild of a Jewish businessman, Henri Bendel, who founded his eponymous Manhattan store in 1895.
His shop was “the zeitgeist of New York”, says New York jeweller Jade Trau, who used to shop there once a month with her mother and grandmother from the late 1980s until it closed in 2019. The store “had a great energy. And there was stuff you didn’t see everywhere else, different from other department stores.
It had this sparkly and old-world feeling,” she says. A Bendel hat box. (Photo: Bendel press office) The distinctive brown and cream-striped shopping bags, designed by Bendel, were as sought after as the clothes and accessories that were carefully wrapped inside.
“There was something about walking out [with these bags] that felt extremely satisfying,” says Trau. Unlike Bloomingdale’s little brown shopper, a Bendel bag “was a much more elevated bag. It was glossy,” she says.
They were collectible trophies. Sex and the City ’s Carrie Bradshaw showed off her style cred by sporting a smart Henri Bendel hat box as she sashayed along the New York streets while fashionable Friend Rachel Green, played by Jennifer Aniston, went for Henri Bendel extras, carrying them in tiny striped totes. This week, a book called.