Neiman Marcus in Boston's Copley Place

Neiman Marcus in Boston's Copley Place

In the late 1990s, the company started a small boutique called the "Galleries of Neiman Marcus" which sold jewelry, gifts, and home accessories. The concept struggled and ultimately all three locations, Seattle, Cleveland, and Phoenix, were shuttered. Some believe the locations were wrong and Neiman Marcus officials have hinted the concept might be resurrected.[citation needed] In 1999, neimanmarcus.com, and the store's online gift registry, debuted under the control of Neiman Marcus Group's Neiman Marcus Direct division.

Stanley Marcus died on January 22, 2002. He had served as president and chairman of the board for the company. Marcus had been the architect behind the fashion shows, New York advertising for a strictly regional chain, in-store art exhibits, and the Christmas catalog with its outlandish His-and-Hers gifts, including vicuña coats, a pair of airplanes, "Noah's Ark" (including pairs of animals), camels, and live tigers.[3][5][12]

Over the last 20 years, ownership of Neiman Marcus has passed through several hands. In June 1987, the company was spun off from its retail parent, Carter Hawley Hale Stores, and became a publicly listed company. General Cinema, later to become Harcourt General, still had a roughly 60% controlling interest until 1999, when Neiman Marcus was fully spun off from its parent company. On May 2, 2005, Neiman Marcus Group was the subject of a leveraged buyout (LBO), selling itself to two private equity firms, Texas Pacific Group and Warburg Pincus.[13]

Archives

The "Neiman-Marcus Collection," comprising early account books, advertising and Christmas Catalog layouts, files on charity activities, past awards and presentations, and a collection of Stanley Marcus's personal memorabilia, among many other items, is located in the Texas & Dallas History & Archives Division, 7th Floor, Main Library, Dallas Public Library, where it may be consulted by researchers.

Lloyd E. Lenard (1922–2008) wrote a master's degree thesis on the impact of Neiman Marcus on the American Southwest while he was a student at the University of Missouri at Columbia. Neiman Marcus hired Lenard to its management training program, but he soon returned to his native Louisiana, where he worked, first in advertising, and then insurance.