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Lord & Taylor, under new ownership, is being relaunched as a licensed brand to be hopefully sold at once-competing stores as well as on its own website.
“My idea is to put all these master manufacturers behind the brand to create many different products — womenswear, special occasion dresses, suiting, small leather goods, footwear, and many other categories,” Sina Yenel, chief brand and strategy officer of Regal Brands Global, told The Business of Fashion.
In September, Regal Brands Global, consisting of a consortium of anonymous buyers, acquired Lord & Taylor’s intellectual property following a default by its previous owner, Saadia Group.
The new owners are seeking to capitalize on the nearly 200-year-old department store’s legacy, with Lord & Taylor’s relaunched website proclaiming the chain’s “The Signature of American Style” tagline that arrived soon after its 1983 acquisition by May Department Stores.
The new owners also brought back Lord & Taylor’s sweeping signature logo originally forged in the 1920s by former president Dorothy Shaver, who earned the title “First Lady of Retailing” for bringing innovations, including shop-in-shops and animated holiday window displays, to retail. Saadia Group simplified the logo to a Helvetica font in 2022, which Yenel said was “the biggest betrayal of the brand.”
“The Icon Returns,” Lord & Taylor’s revamped website proclaims. “We are delighted to bring back our beloved logo and are dedicated to restoring Lord & Taylor’s reputation for exceptional customer service and quality. Our focus will be on introducing new products under the iconic Lord & Taylor signature logo.”
The website, set to relaunch in early 2025, will initially feature a luxury category, a Lord & Taylor heritage section, a section dedicated to dresses, and a Gen Z-focused section offering edgier but affordable looks. Yenel told WWD, “Our main focus is to launch the website with very well-known brand names, and to position the Lord & Taylor heritage products next to these brands.”
Contrary to some published reports, the website won’t focus on off-price selling and won’t be a marketplace, Yenel told Retail Dive.
At the same time, Regal Brands Global is in active discussions with potential licensing partners to develop Lord & Taylor-branded products across categories that are expected to be sold on its website, as well as to third-party retailers, beginning in early 2025.
Lord & Taylor has no current plans to reopen stores, with the last one closed in 2021. Yenel sees a quicker path to re-establishing the brand via wholesale partnerships, including shops-in-shops or strategic pop-ups. Though his “dream down the road is to open a Lord & Taylor store, his first priority is to ‘conquer the online presence,’” according to WWD.
The brand will seek to open distribution at retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom but is not restricting distribution to upscale channels. Yenel told Business of Fashion, “We’re telling our licensees that we’re not limiting them on distribution. We dictate the quality. Price points will vary but we don’t want to be at the bottom.”
Past attempts to revive liquidated retailers have largely failed. However, Barneys New York, which shuttered its locations in 2019, has returned as an in-store shop inside Saks Fifth Ave.’s Manhattan flagship and stores in Greenwich, Connecticut. It also has licensed stores in Japan.
Toys“R”Us, which filed for liquidation in 2018, has found some success in forming partnerships and licenses with third-party retailers. Bed Bath & Beyond, which closed all of its locations in 2023, recently formed partnerships with Kirkland’s and Container Store in its attempt to return to physical retail.