Consuming Desires
Michael Kors
For me, Bloomingdale’s was the Valhalla of what represented a fast, big city to a kid growing up in the suburbs. For the junior prom I needed a suit, and because I was super, super skinny, the clothes just swallowed me whole. But Bloomingdale’s carried smaller cut, private-label European clothes that fit me perfectly. I bought a creamy khaki-colored suit that fit me perfectly, and I still can’t believe the men’s department carried a suit that small.
Blair Sabol
That look of the Upper East Side, they created that. They got me the right handbag, the Cher jewelry if I wanted it and the boho top. I really miss that level of consuming. Amazon is not a part of anyone’s life, other than hitting the checkout key.
Julian Fellowes, creator of “Downton Abbey” and “The Gilded Age”
I included Bloomingdale’s in “The Gilded Age” partly because I wanted to illustrate the glamour of the big city. The character Marian has grown up in Doylestown, Pa., where the shops in 1882 would have been fairly fundamental. She’d have made her own clothes or ordered them from a local seamstress, and luxury goods were certainly in short supply. The shops in New York that had opened in the 1860s, ’70s and ’80s would have seemed unimaginably glamorous and full of things she had only dreamed about.
Sarah Jessica Parker, actor and producer
When I got to New York, I wanted so badly to be a Bloomingdale’s shopper, but I really couldn’t afford the things there — well, maybe I could have if I was totally irresponsible. Still, I could go in, and there were all these things you could aspire to — even if in the end you might leave with one Little Brown Bag.
There was one incident when I threw all caution to the wind. That was when the Calvin Klein underwear came out. People were on line at dawn with orders from friends, and I was, too. I remember Justine Bateman calling from L.A. asking me to pick her up a pair.
