Very Bergdorf Book

On Fifth Avenue, between Fifty-Seventh and Fifty-Eighth Streets, a window display has cast its spell, promising surprise, wit, and glamour before the doors even open.

Very Bergdorf, written by Wendy Goodman, moves through more than eighty defining moments in Bergdorf Goodman's history, from historic designer debuts to Fashion's Night Out and milestone anniversaries. Structured moment by moment, it lingers on shoes, evening wear, and jewels while making clear that Bergdorf's has always been more than a store. Its cover borrows the color of the store's own shopping bags, a nod to a building whose Fifth Avenue presence has grown rarer as retail landmarks disappear.

Goodman, design editor of New York magazine and Curbed and former style director at Harper's Bazaar, draws on her own memories of the store and her closeness to the people who shaped it. Photographer Ricky Zehavi, long behind the lens of Bergdorf's windows, and firsthand quotes from Rihanna, Tom Browne, and Michael Kors bring its mythology into sharper focus.

For the New Yorker who has paused before those windows, and for anyone who understands that a great store can be a world of its own, Very Bergdorf marks 125 years of an institution whose magic, as Goodman writes, only deepens once you step inside. 

About the Author

Wendy Goodman is the design editor of New York magazine and Curbed. She previously served as New York’s interior design editor and fashion editor, and was style director at Harper’s Bazaar under Liz Tilberis, where she produced and wrote stories on style, interiors, and architecture. She has also covered fashion and design for House & Garden and The New York Times Magazine. Goodman is the author of May I Come In?: Discovering the World in Other People’s Houses (Abrams, 2018) and The World of Gloria Vanderbilt (Abrams, 2010), and co-author, with Hutton Wilkinson, of Tony Duquette (Abrams, 2007). Goodman lives in Greenwich Village and was born and raised in New York City.