On Everything #128: Madison Avenue in Decline: Have the New York City Rich Abandoned Fashion?
A weekly newsletter from Eugene Rabkin, our founder and editor.
Every holiday season I used to stroll on Fifth Avenue, starting at Saks, eventually passing by Bergdorf Goodman, making a turn on East 60th at Barneys and going up Madison, taking in the festive decorations and doing retail reconnaissance (combining work with pleasure is one of the biggest perks of my job). Since the pandemic, due to the hoards of tourists, I have cut this stroll by half and now stick to Madison.
New York City’s uptown used to have two sets of luxury stores, one on Fifth Avenue for the tourists, and one on Madison Avenue for the local rich who could shop without mixing with the hoi polloi. There were two Guccis, two Givenchys, two Dolce & Gabbana’s and so on. For many brands now, there is only one. Gradually, they have abandoned Madison Avenue, between 60th and 79th, the OG New York City luxury shopping district. Some either closed doors (Gucci, Missoni, Givenchy, Pucci), or moved ten to fifteen blocks lower (Celine, Balenciaga, Dolce & Gabbana, Alexander McQueen, which I will NEVER call “McQueen”). Few still operate both their 5th Ave and their Madison locations – Prada, Chanel, and Giorgio Armani. Valentino is an outlier, having gotten into a rental scandal with its Fifth Ave landlord and subsequently taking over the former Calvin Klein flagship at Madison and E. 60th St.
What is left on Madison could be a telling sign of how the New York City rich now shop. The reason I single them out is because they used to be an important customer cohort that not just had money to spend but also set the tone of luxury taste in the way a Houston oil housewife or an Atlanta belle never could, because frankly nobody cared, and no one still does, even though they now probably outspend the Upper East Siders. Because if the current state of retail on Madison Avenue is any indication, the NYC rich no longer care that much about fashion. So what does Madison Avenue look like now?
