July 5 was Lorri Baldwin”™s birthday. It was also her first day on the job as general manager of Bloomingdale”™s White Plains.
Coming as she was from Colorado ”“ where she spent 34 years with Nordstrom Inc., most recently as district manager for Nordstrom Rack in Colorado and Utah ”“ she could”™ve taken an extra week to get settled. Still, Baldwin wanted to plunge right in.
It was not the first time she had had a job offer from Bloomie”™s. “But 2022 was the right time for me,” she says, “kicking off the 150th anniversary of an iconic brand and being part of its next 150 years.”
If you haven”™t heard, the luxury store ”“ founded in 1872 by Joseph B. and Lyman G. Bloomingdale in Manhattan ”“ is celebrating the big 150 nationwide with more than 300 limited-edition designer exclusives that you can put into five new versions of the Big Brown Bag, the store”™s signature shopping bag; plus months of live and streamed events that began with a Sept. 9 gala at its Manhattan flagship.
The festivities come on the heels of a good second quarter for Bloomie”™s and parent company Macy”™s Inc.
“During the second quarter, we delivered solid results, despite the challenging environment,” Jeff Gennette, Macy”™s Inc. chairman and CEO, said in a statement of a daunting climate that has included the continuing pandemic, supply shortages, a skeptical workforce, rising prices and the ever-present online competition. “Our teams have consistently responded to the dynamic landscape with disciplined, data-driven actions to ensure the health and stability of our business. We believe that we are well positioned to respond to changing consumer behaviors. Despite inflationary pressures, consumers continued to shop Macy’s as a style source and leading gifting destination. Additionally, Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury captured demand for luxury brands, resulting in both nameplates outperforming in the quarter.”
According to Berkshire Hathaway”™s Businesswire, “Bloomingdale”™s comparable sales on an owned basis were up 8.8% and on an owned-plus-licensed basis were up 5.8%, with four million active customers shopping the Bloomingdale”™s brand, on a trailing 12-month basis, a 14% increase over the prior year. The results were driven by strength across women”™s, men”™s and kid”™s contemporary and dressy apparel as well as luggage.” (The Manhattan flagship alone, at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, is expected to receive 2.9 million visitors this year.)
Locally, Baldwin says, that translates not only into loyal customers who”™ve been shopping at the White Plains store ”“ one of 33 nationwide, including in Norwalk ”“ since the roughly 300,000-square-foot standalone glass box opened in 1975, but to recent transplants who first discovered Bloomingdale”™s when they lived in New York City.
“The store connects to clients in a unique way,” she says. “You”™ll hear people say, for example, ”˜I got my prom dress at Bloomingdale”™s.”™”
Making that connection ”“ about 250 employees, some of whom have been with the White Plains store for all of its 47 years, Baldwin says, and have told her they plan to celebrate their 50th anniversaries there. These employees ”“ including the staff at Forty Carrots, the restaurant and adjacent lunch counter, whose offerings include the store”™s signature frozen yogurt ”“ know the regulars by sight and/or by name to such an extent that they have formed new relationships. (This reporter is part of a weekly dinner roundtable there that was put together by one of the members of Forty Carrots”™ wait staff.)
In turn, staffers say they appreciate a boss who is genuinely interested in how they”™re doing. Such curiosity is the key to salesmanship, says Baldwin, who observed it up close in childhood.
She was born in Seattle and raised in suburban Portland, Oregon, where she attended public schools and where her father sold industrial fasteners.
“He worked on straight commission,” she remembers. “He could sell anything. He could talk to anyone.”
At Willamette University, a liberal arts college in Salem, Oregon, Baldwin wasn”™t thinking of a career in sales, however. She majored in Russian and Spanish, with a minor in abnormal psychology and an eye to a career as a United Nations translator. Partly of Ukrainian descent ”“ a great-grandfather was born in Kyiv ”“ Baldwin taught English at Simferopol State University in Crimea. Though the Russian invasion of Ukraine is particularly poignant for her, she has fond memories of traveling throughout the former Soviet Union, particularly experiencing beautiful, cultured St. Petersburg and its hypnotic White Nights, when the sky never darkens from mid-May through mid-July. (It was a phenomenon she encountered when she lived in Alaska as well.)
Though Baldwin has traveled the world and the United States ”“ living everywhere from Boston to Dallas and always soaking up the local culture — New York, she says, “feels like coming home.” Still, she realized she wasn”™t cut out to be a U.N. translator there.
“I loved fashion and retail so much I decided to pursue a career in the industry,” she says.
Indeed, at the Saturday, Sept. 10 birthday bash at BloomingdaleӪs White Plains, she looks soign̩ in a little black dress and ropes of pearls. (She also favors boucl̩ jackets and print dresses.)
But then, for Baldwin, every Saturday is a special event. So much so that you won”™t find her sprucing up her new home, a Colonial in North White Plains she fell in love with, on that day, because “Saturday,” she reminds you, “is the biggest day in retail.”
For more, visit bloomingdales.com.
