It's the Brian Lair show on WNYC. Good morning. I'm David First, WNYC weekend edition host filling in for

Brian today. Another American retail icon has hit rock bottom.

Last week, Sacks Global, the parent company of Sacks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus,

and Bergdorf Goodman filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

This feels familiar, right?

In the last 10 years, New York City has lost so many of its department stores.

Barneys, Lord and Taylor, Henry Bendel, Century 21, J.C. Penny, and most recently the Macy's in downtown Brooklyn.

Neiman Marcus also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy before it was acquired by Sacks.

With us now is Vanessa Friedman, fashion director and chief fashion critic of the New York Times

to explain why SACS is filing for bankruptcy, what it means for shoppers, and why so many

department stores are crumbling in this new retail landscape.

Vanessa, welcome back to WNYC.

Hi, David. Nice to be with you.

And before we ask about how Sacks got to this point, is there going to be like huge sales

going on at Sacks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf-Goodman? Are they liquidating assets and closing

stores? What's happening?

Well, this is not a going out of business sale.

This is not a Barney's situation.

It is most likely a shrinking of the Sachs-Neman's footprint situation.

So there may be some stores that are going to have going out of business sales, most

likely a Sachs off fifth.

For anyone who is in New York over the holidays they might recall the the sacks off fifth on I believe 57th Street

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