Bloomingdales

Bloomingdale's is a New York department store chain founded in 1861 by the brothers Joseph B. Bloomingdale and Lyman G. Bloomingdale, and it began life selling a foundation garment. Its first shop, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, traded as Bloomingdale's Hoopskirts and sold hoop skirts alongside European fashions. Owned since 1930 by the group now called Macy's, Inc., it runs department stores, outlets and smaller concept shops across the United States, and its intimates floors are one of the main places American shoppers meet premium lingerie brands.

Bloomingdale's Hoopskirts, 1861

The opening year matters to this encyclopedia. In 1861 the hoop skirt, the cage of flexible hoops that held out the wide skirts of the period, was the defining undergarment of women's dress. A store founded to sell it was, in modern terms, an underwear shop. The brothers soon outgrew the single product. In 1872 they opened a second location in Midtown Manhattan, called Bloomingdale's Great East Side Bazaar, at 965 Third Avenue.

The store later moved to 59th Street and Third Avenue, where the flagship still stands. When the subway arrived in 1918, the main entrance shifted to the Lexington Avenue side to catch the new foot traffic.

Federated, then Macy's

Bloomingdale's lost its independence early. Federated Department Stores acquired it in 1930, and it stayed inside that group as Federated grew. In 1994 Federated bought Macy's, and in 2007 the parent took the Macy's, Inc. name. Bloomingdale's has run as the group's upmarket chain ever since, priced above Macy's and stocked with more designer labels.

The chain expanded slowly outside Manhattan. Its first branch beyond the island opened in New Rochelle in 1947. In 1969 it gave a single designer, Halston, his own department, an early version of the in-store designer shop that now organizes most of its floors. The rounded logo appeared in 1972, and the "Big Brown Bag" and "Little Brown Bag" shopping bags followed a year later. Both are still in use.

Abroad, Bloomingdale's works through franchise partners. The first international store opened in Dubai in February 2010, and a Kuwait branch followed in 2017. As of 2024 the chain operated 32 directly owned department stores, 21 outlet stores and four Bloomie's concept stores, smaller-format shops that test a tighter assortment.

The intimates floor

Bloomingdale's is not a lingerie brand, and the products this encyclopedia files under its name are the store's intimates and swim stock rather than a house line with its own design history. Its role in the lingerie market is that of a gatekeeper. A department store of this tier decides which bra and nightwear brands reach a national customer who will not visit a specialist boutique, and a placement at Bloomingdale's has long been a milestone for a growing label.

That buying power cuts both ways. Department store intimates departments run on brand concessions and wholesale accounts, so the assortment shifts with what sells; a brand that fails to perform loses floor space quickly. Specialist New York shops such as Journelle compete on service and fit rather than breadth. Online retailers such as Shopbop compete on range and speed.

The store's own records of its intimates business, from brand line-ups to sales, are not public, and no source checked for this entry describes the history of its lingerie department in detail. What can be said is that the store's history starts and ends with underpinnings. It opened selling the structure beneath the dress. It now sells, among much else, the balconette bras, shapewear and nightwear that took its place.

Bloomingdale's today

The chain celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2022, counting from the 1872 opening of the Midtown store rather than the 1861 hoop skirt shop. The 59th Street building remains the flagship and the brand's address in shoppers' minds. Its lingerie and swim buyers sit inside a group that also runs Macy's, which gives the chain unusual leverage with suppliers and a clear division of labor: Macy's sells the mass-market bra, Bloomingdale's the premium one.

Last updated October 7, 2026