Chairman Emeritus, Neiman Marcus
Stanley Marcus was among the most important figures in the history of American retail merchandising and marketing. Through his many innovations, he transformed a local Dallas clothing store into an international brand synonymous with high style, fashion and gracious service.
As far back as 1934, Marcus realized that his greatest competition was from leading retailers in New York and San Francisco. Defying conventional wisdom, he boldly pursued a national advertising campaign for his local store with two ads in Vogue and Harper’s. This strategy put Neiman Marcus on the fashion map. Readers began to ask, “What is this store in Dallas that is one of the five leading distributors of fashion merchandise?”
During his 51-year career, he personally supervised the preparation and execution of advertising campaigns for all of the stores. These campaigns won numerous local, regional and national awards for innovation and impact.. It was Marcus who gave retail advertising the “Neiman-Marcus look.”
One of his legendary innovations is the Neiman Marcus Christmas Catalogue, an advertising strategy that revolutionized direct-mail marketing. A unique feature of the catalogue, “His and Hers” gifts, makes national news when announced each year. He proved that a store that sold “His and Her” camels was also the place to buy nylon stockings.
He also built the Neiman Marcus brand with the “Neiman Marcus Fortnight,” a marketing event that brought international fashion, cuisine, art and culture to the landmark store in Dallas, a city far removed from the fashion world. Beginning with France, the Fortnight has celebrated the culture of countries such as Ireland, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia. In fact, civic and business leaders credit Marcus with putting Dallas on the map as an international marketplace. The captivating Marcus drew to Dallas renowned international designers such as Christian Dior and Coco Chanel.
Yet Stanley Marcus was more than merely a successful businessman. Designer Bill Blass once called him the “intellectual retailer.” Ralph Lauren called him “one of the greatest visionaries of the century.” He was a benefactor, spokesman, scholar, talented writer and social critic, collector, lecturer, arts patron, philanthropist and civic leader.
Marcus wrote dozens of articles for publications such as ADWEEK, Advertising Age, Business Week, Glamour, The Atlantic Monthly and Fortune. He contributed his time and resources to a myriad of cultural and business pursuits including the Dallas Museum of Art, The Dallas Symphony, the Dallas Public Library, the Dallas Zoological Society, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and Southern Methodist University. He also had several published books: Minding the Store, Quest for the Best, His and Hers, The Viewpoints of Stanley Marcus and Stanley Marcus from A to Z Viewpoints Volume II, a compilation of some of his newspaper pieces.
