This isn’t your mom’s Lord & Taylor. But it sure looks like a good deal.
Bargain hunters are swarming to the upscale department store chain’s Fifth Avenue flagship during its final days, pouncing on deeply discounted shoes, dresses — and even the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
By lunchtime on Tuesday, longtime customer Naomi McLaurin had spent $1,300 on a half-dozen pieces of jewelry, including a $600 amethyst ring, which all told would have cost upwards of $3,600.
“It’s heartbreaking to see this location close,” said McLaurin, who has shopped at the Fifth Avenue store since the 1980s, as she headed to the upper floors for deals on designer clothing.
Lord & Taylor continues to operate 47 stores, mainly along the East Coast. But its historic, 104-year-old flagship is set to close on Jan. 2 after parent company Hudson’s Bay cut an $854 million deal in October 2017 to sell the building to office-space startup WeWork.
A going-out-of-business sale that began Oct. 4 has lately created buzz over its eye-popping bargains. A Blondie Nites cocktail dress that had retailed at $249 was available for $16.99 on Tuesday. Dresses under the now-defunct Ivanka Trump label, meanwhile, were hanging on a rack advertising a price of $8.99.
Elsewhere, Ralph Lauren sportswear and Calvin Klein jeans were going for $8.99 a pair, as were summer frocks and tops from the likes of Karl Lagerfeld and Rafaella.
Still, shoppers moods seemed mixed as they combed through mounds of discounted goods. Belle Scanlon, who came down from Westchester on Tuesday in search of deals, bagged two tops and a dress for $30. But she was equally despondent over its demise.
“This was my ‘it’ store,” Scanlon said.
Even the Victorian chandeliers on the ground floor — all 80 of them — are being sold for about $1,000 a pop, a source said. Twenty of them, which weigh 300 pounds each, have already sold to individuals, the source said.
Less-glamorous fixtures like clothing racks, tables and display cases also carried price tags, with some of them marked as sold.
One area where bargains are harder to find is in the beauty department on the ground floor, where the 15 percent discount looks stingy next to the 50 to 70 percent markdowns elsewhere. That’s in part because Lord & Taylor will return most of the unsold perfumes, creams and makeup to the vendors, said a Hudson’s Bay spokesperson.
Still, many of the perfume testers were missing, sales associates said, as shoppers had helped themselves to the bottles and the store isn’t replacing them.
“It’s been decades since a department store of this quality has gone out of business,” said retail consultant Richard Baum, pointing to B. Altman and Bonwit Teller as the last grande dame stores to close in The Big Apple.
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