Home Care In Bloomingdale, IN

Hair care is coming to Bloomingdale’s in a big way.

Starting in March, Bloomingdale’s will offer an in-store assortment of more than 30 hair products, accessories, perfume and tools via its Carousel rotating concept, at locations including the 59th Street flagship in NYC. Bloomingdale’s first introduced its Carousel concept in 2019, which features products curated around different themes. This is the first time hair care has been a theme, though Bloomingdale’s has always sold hair care online. Hair care will become a permanent in-store fixture in Bloomingdale’s after approximately 10 weeks in the Carousel.

As part of the Carousel, Bloomingdale’s is bringing new brands into its distribution, including AG Hair, Isles Formula, IGK, Living Proof, Alterna, RevAir and Ives Durif, among others. Throughout March, brands like Bumble & Bumble will provide in-storecustomers with dry styling and product demonstrations.

“The intention is to show our customer we have [hair care]. We know from online sales that customers are looking to purchase hair [products] in a bigger way. An in-store presence with activations showing the customer how to use the products is a huge opportunity for us,” said Marissa Galante Frank, fashion director at Bloomingdale’s. She declined to share the company’s online hair care sales figures but noted that marketing emails involving hair were seeing success.

Bloomingdale’s parent company, Macy’s, Inc., held its fourth-quarter earnings call on Tuesday. The executive team announced it would close 150 Macy’s locations and expand the physical footprints of Bloomingdale’s and Blue Mercury. Specifically, Bloomingdale’s will accelerate the rollout of its small-format store called Bloomies and its Bloomingdale’s Outlets, with 15 store openings planned in the next three years. Off-price retail has gained notable interest and attraction from both beauty brands and consumers in recent months, per recent Glossy reporting. Year-over-year, Bloomingdale’s net sales were up 3.5%, and its comparable sales were down 1.6% on an owned plus licensed basis.

“To close out the discussion on luxury, we have a high degree of confidence in Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, which are healthy and accretive and have strong investment profiles. Now is the time to capitalize on this momentum, and we expect these investments will fuel sales growth and margin expansion,” said Tony Spring, CEO of Macy’s, Inc. on the earnings call.

Across department stores, hair products are gaining traction. Drybar hair styling opened in Nordstrom’s flagship location in Bellevue, Wash. in February. Macy’s has also leaned more into hair care via its luxe beauty retail concept locations as they’ve expanded over the last year. When Dyson opened its first U.S. Beauty Lab in South Florida in 2022, it selected Saks Fifth Avenue as the location.

“Hair is having a moment as a global trend. And we have a very diverse customer, so we’re looking at how to service all of our customers in the hair care space,” said Galante Frank. When asked why Bloomingdale’s had only offered hair care online and not in-store, she said she was uncertain about the reasons but emphasized that Bloomingdale’s is seeing the opportunity now.

“We’re trying to listen to the customer, and we’re trying to simplify her journey and service her in all aspects of her life,” she said.

The retailer, under a new chief executive and facing a takeover bid, outlined a three-year strategy to achieve “sustainable, profitable growth.”

Macy’s said on Tuesday that it would vastly reshape its strategy and retail footprint, closing about 150 Macy’s stores over the next three years while expanding its upscale Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury chains.

The moves put the stamp of the company’s new chief executive, Tony Spring, on an effort to keep the largest department store operator in the United States profitable and stave off a pending takeover bid.

It is the second major downsizing of the Macy’s chain since 2020 and will leave the company with 350 stores, slightly more than half the number it had before the pandemic.

The overhaul is intended to “accelerate our path to market share gains, sustainable, profitable growth and value creation for our shareholders,” Mr. Spring, who took over this month, said in a statement.

Macy’s said it planned to close “underproductive locations,” noting that they accounted for 25 percent of the company’s overall square footage but just 10 percent of sales. The company said it expected to take in $600 million to $750 million by selling these stores and streamlining some of its warehouses.

The company said it would start notifying workers on Tuesday at stores it planned to close. It plans to shutter roughly 50 stores this fiscal year and the rest by the end of 2026.

While the Macy’s stores close, the company plans to add 15 Bloomingdale’s locations. Bluemercury, its beauty chain, will add 30 stores, while others will be remodeled. As of November, there were 58 Bloomingdale’s and 158 Bluemercury locations.

“There’s less competition there, but the problem is that it’s not clear that the luxury department store really has a great future,” said David Swartz, a retail analyst at the financial services firm Morningstar. “A lot of luxury labels are doing their own direct selling.” He noted that the luxury chain Nordstrom had been closing stores in recent years.

The company will open its smaller-format Bloomingdale’s stores — known as Bloomie’s — and outlet stores in 15 markets over the next three years, Mr. Spring said on a call with analysts.

In recent years, the company has been opening smaller stores within outdoor strip malls, rather than enclosed malls, which have been losing shoppers.

“That’s where the whole market is going,” Mr. Swartz said. “It makes sense for Macy’s to open up stores in those smaller locations, but is it too late? There’s already other companies doing the same thing, and will Macy’s actually stand out and will it make up for the lost sales they will have from closing 150 stores?”

The decision to pare the midmarket Macy’s chain while increasing the luxury chains’ presence is a sign that Mr. Spring wants to reposition the company’s overall image so consumers see it as a higher-end destination.

Customer research showed that people wanted a better shopping experience at Macy’s, the company said, whether with improved visual merchandising or more help from store workers. The savings that the company expects from this strategy, including the sale of some of its assets, could help underwrite such improvements.

Mr. Spring, who spent four decades at Bloomingdale’s, took the corporate reins at a challenging time. In December, an investor group submitted a bid that would take Macy’s private at a value of $5.8 billion. The investors, Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management, said that unless the retailer began sharing nonpublic information with them, they might take their offer to shareholders.

Sales have fallen as Macy’s has struggled to win over the next generation of shoppers and compete in a world increasingly oriented toward e-commerce.

Mr. Spring had already started making his mark. In January, a memo to employees from him and the departing chief executive, Jeff Gennette, said the company would cut about 2,300 jobs, or 13 percent of its corporate work force, as it looked to better align its resources with customer behavior and to make decisions faster. The company also said it planned to close a handful of stores.

The last major restructuring at Macy’s was in February 2020, when the company said it would close 125 stores and cut 2,000 jobs. Then the pandemic turned many stores dark for weeks, forcing the retailer to scramble to improve its website and e-commerce offerings and figure out how to bring people back to stores once they reopened.

After an initial sales boost from consumer spending on all manner of items early in the pandemic, Macy’s has faced a sales slump.

On Tuesday, the company also reported earnings for fourth quarter, which included the holiday shopping season. Net sales of $8.1 billion were in line with analysts’ estimates. Sales at both Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s were down from a year earlier, while those at Bluemercury rose 2.3 percent — a sign that shoppers are gravitating toward the beauty and skin-care categories.

Macy’s is betting that its future lies in luxury.

The retailer is planning to close about 150 stores over the next three years, while expanding the footprint of Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. The latter are considered to be more upscale shops, with Bloomingdale’s offering a number of luxury goods and Bluemercury focused on beauty and skin-care products.

“We have to focus on having the best stores, not the largest number of stores,” Tony Spring, the new Macy’s CEO, said on a call with analysts.

The soon-to-be shuttered locations make up 25 percent of the company’s overall square footage but only 10 percent of sales, the Times noted. Some 50 will be phased out this year, while the rest will close by 2026, leaving about 350 Macy’s locations total. Meanwhile, the company will open 15 new Bloomingdale’s locations and 30 Bluemercury outposts.

Spring’s decision is part of a larger overall shift to position Macy’s as a higher-end brand across the board. Along with opening more luxury-focused stores, the company will work to make the shopping experience at Macy’s even better, something that came up in customer research. That potentially means updated merchandise assortments and more workers who have been trained to recommend products to shoppers and help them in the fitting rooms.

“I don’t believe that taste and style need to cost more; I don’t think it should be reserved for the affluent,” Spring said. “I think that we need to do a better job in our content and in our presentation and in our marketing, so that the customer sees and is inspired by what we’re selling.”

Still, it’s unclear whether the company’s pivot will pay off. More and more, people are doing their shopping online, and both Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s saw sales drop in 2023 compared with the year prior. (Sales at Bluemercury, however, rose 2.3 percent.) But Macy’s is hopeful that brick-and-mortar shops will lead to more online sales: About 80 percent of Bloomingdale’s digital sales are in markets where there are also physical stores, The New York Times said.

Even then, high-end consumers often turn toward individual retailers for their clothes, accessories, and more, opting to shop at an individual Chanel, Louis Vuitton, or Hermès store rather than a department store.

“There’s less competition there, but the problem is that it’s not clear that the luxury department store really has a great future,” David Swartz, a retail analyst, told the Times. “A lot of luxury labels are doing their own direct selling.”

Malls have been on their way out for a while now, and department stores may be the next to fall.

“Barbie” is headed to Bloomingdale’s, naturally.

The retailer revealed its partnership with Mattel in celebration of the most highly anticipated film of the summer, Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Barbie the Movie.” The multifaceted partnership includes online and in-store pop-up shops, an exclusive collaboration with “Barbie the Movie” and Bloomingdale’s private label Aqua, window displays and various events and activations.

Over the years, Bloomingdale’s has been known for its impactful tie-ins with films, TV and Broadway shows such as “Moulin Rouge,” “The Greatest Showman,” “Rent,” “Chariots of Fire,” “Evita,” “Phantom of the Opera, “Hairspray” and “Bridgerton.”

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Mattel and Warner Bros. on what’s anticipated to be the most iconic pop culture moment of the year,” said Frank Berman, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Bloomingdale’s. “As ‘Barbie the Movie’ continues to take center stage, we’ll be rolling out some of the most exciting activations, nationwide events, and product collaborations to date, starting with our exclusive Aqua collection. Our customers will be able to channel and experience Barbie through fashion and fun.”

As Bloomingdale’s gets ready to roll out its promotion, a number of companies have been curating special collections inspired by the iconic doll in anticipation of the film’s release, such as Moon, Superga, Impala, Primark, Funboy and Gap.

Berman said it’s not the first time that Bloomingdale’s has teamed up with the iconic doll, and the retailer has often aligned with pop culture moments.

“Bloomingdale’s throughout our history is synonymous with pop culture, which is one of the core differentiators of our brand,” said Berman. “Coming through our 150th anniversary and going through the history over the decades, the amount of intersection with pop culture over the years has been incredible, including with the Barbie brand.”

During the ’80s and ’90s, there were a number of exclusive Barbies at Bloomingdale’s created with designers such as Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan and Nicole Miller, who outfitted Barbie in their collections, he said. “Barbie is such a big part of pop culture and it’s a brand that’s been around more than 60 years, and we helped celebrate their 50th anniversary in our store with a retrospective of Barbie over the decades and the evolution of the brand that’s so ingrained in pop culture,” said Berman.

Richard Dickson, president and chief operating officer of Mattel, said, “Barbie and Bloomingdale’s have been playing together for years, so it’s no surprise that we have teamed up once again to create an incredible fashion collection and immersive experience that will celebrate the movie event of the summer.”

Berman said the Barbie promotion isn’t just limited to young women and kids.

“It covers across all demographics. As part of the fashion connection with Barbie, we created this Aqua capsule collection with ‘Barbie the Movie,'” said Berman. He said when you look at the customers who shop Aqua, it’s customers of all demographics. “It’s got the right aesthetic, it’s on trend and it’s at a good price point,” said Berman, noting they’ve frequently used Aqua for various collaborations with pop culture. “This seemed like a natural fit,” he said.

Bloomingdale’s exclusive “Barbie the Movie” x Aqua collection will be sold alongside an assortment of licensed apparel and accessories including Impala Skates featured in the film, and products from such brands as Barefoot Dreams, Funboy Floats, PJ Salvage, among others. Some 44 brands are participating in the promotion, 11 of which are “Barbie” specific.

The “Barbie the Movie” x Aqua 26-piece collection features women’s and girls’ apparel and accessories, ranging from sequins to matching tweed sets. The line, which retails from $55 to $200, has dresses, pants, pleated miniskirts, tanks and blazers in a color palette of pinks and blues, inspired by fashions seen in the film. To complete the look, there are heart-shaped crystal cross-bodies, shimmering evening bags, bold earrings with pearls, fringe and crystals, and a paperclip star necklace.

The “Barbie” online activation begins Tuesday, while the in-store shops go in July 13.

Through activations in-store, shoppers are invited to enter a Barbie DreamHouse at the pop-up in the 59th Street store (first floor Carousel area) and Century City; take photos in a life-size Barbie box; and shop exclusive, customizable products from July 13 through Aug. 24.

In the beauty realm, there will be hairstyling touch-up # ForAllHairkind with the Shark FlexStyle, available exclusively at Bloomingdale’s 59th Street store on Fridays and Saturdays from July 13 through Aug. 24. There will be makeovers and hair blow-outs, said Berman. “Shark Beauty is a great partner that we tapped to be a key player within the beauty space,” he said.

On July 21, the Lexington Avenue windows at the Bloomingdale’s 59th Street flagship will be reimagined in Barbie pink, for the first time, featuring iconic scenes inspired by the movie and looks from the “Barbie the Movie” x Aqua collaborative collection, according to Berman. The windows will be up through Aug. 14.

“We really left Ken out of the mix,” Berman said, referencing the lack of menswear focus.

The branch stores will carry the full assortment of Aqua product, but won’t have the entire in-store shop.

In the kids’ area, there’s a girls’ assortment of Aqua with activations in those departments. “Barbie is a multigenerational brand; that’s why we love the paring with Aqua. There’s nostalgia that comes from the parents of young brands. It’s an incredible brand with its own iconic history,” he said.

As for traffic expectations, Berman said he expects it to be a big draw. “This is our big summer moment. We’ve got a pretty sizable investment for 59th Street and our Los Angeles flagship in Century City. We expect it to be a fun summer activity to come and experience the shop and the merchandise and the fun and animation and unexpected fun moments,” said Berman.

On July 22, for a “Barbie’s Best Day Ever” promotion, there will be a live DJ and immersive activities at Bloomingdale’s 59th Street and Century City only.

Asked if there’s been any backlash to Barbie promoting unrealistic beauty standards, he said, “No, none at all. I think Barbie has evolved over time to stay current, with diversity, equity and inclusion. If you take a look at their assortment and how they’ve evolved over the years…that’s why we were happy to partner with them. That’s certainly a big focus for us. I don’t see any backlash from it. It’s some cast, and the director’s fabulous. Just to have that partnership together, I think it will be a home run.”

Turning to key looks in the Barbie collection that he anticipates will be bestsellers, he said, “I think the whole Aqua and ‘Barbie the Movie’ Collection is going to blow out. That’s the big focus, and that’s the centerpiece for everything we’re doing. It’s just a really fun product that brings it all together.”

Berman reflected on how Bloomingdale’s is able to appeal to different ends of the fashion spectrum. “We have luxury and you can walk up to that shoe floor, and we have Prada, Gucci, Chanel, Fendi and Jimmy Choo. And we have this ability to have this fun and whimsy and be a kid again. I love that juxtaposition of the Bloomingdale’s brand. We can play on both ends of the spectrum,” said Berman.

When asked whether the stars of the movies will be involved in any way, he said they’re still working out a few deals.

The movie stars Margot Robbie in the title role and Ryan Gosling as her male companion Ken, with an additional ensemble cast including Issa Rae, America Ferrera, Will Ferrell, Simu Liu and Kate McKinnon. The film premieres in theaters nationwide on July 21 and internationally on July 19.

Over the years, Bloomingdale’s has had Nicole Kidman performing with can-can dancers outside the store for its “Moulin Rouge,” promotion, and Zendaya with acrobats, dancers, knife throwers and jugglers for “The Greatest Showman” tie-in.

“This one with Barbie, there’s so much product extension, and it’s just this fun, social experience which is very much in the sweet spot of Bloomingdale’s. We’re a place to gather, and shopping should be social and fun. We’re not a transactional store, we’re an experiential store,” said Berman.

Expanding its award-winning health network, NYU Langone Health this month opened its largest ambulatory care center on Long Island, converting Garden City’s former Bloomingdale’s and Sears building into NYU Langone Ambulatory Care Garden City, a state-of-the-art, 260,000-square-foot facility that houses 32 clinical specialties.

More than 800 staff and doctors expect to care for 400,000 patients each year out of the four-story building at 1111 Franklin Avenue, which encompasses a half mile and an entire square block. The building includes 260 patient exam rooms and a new, expanded adult ophthalmology service.

“NYU Langone is deeply committed to Long Island and expanding our vast network of clinicians, who offer one consistently high standard of care close to where our patients live,” said Andrew W. Brotman, MD, executive vice president and vice dean for clinical affairs and strategy, chief clinical officer, at NYU Langone. “This beautiful new location allows patients to see multiple doctors in a single visit, with each provider connected to the same electronic health record system that ensures integrated care.”

“Nassau County has one of the greatest healthcare networks in the world,” said Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive. “NYU Langone’s new state-of-the-art facility in Garden City will provide the top-notch services they are known for and add to the health of our community.”

“This medical facility is a nice addition to our vibrant downtown,” said Mary Carter Flanagan, the mayor of Garden City. “We look forward to building a long-standing relationship with our newest community member.”

“NYU Langone continues to deepen its relationship with Long Island, establishing a stronghold for its special brand of excellence in this community that I love,” said Michael Rafferty, a member of NYU Langone’s board of trustees and president and CEO of Rafferty Holdings, LLC. “This new facility, backed by fully integrated academic medicine, will meet a critical need for so many people—under the name I know and trust. To have perhaps the best health system in the country in our own backyard is an incredible thing for the people of Long Island.”

The new center’s broad array of services includes these:

Seven of the specialties—cardiology, vascular surgery, endocrinology, gastroenterology, pulmonology, rheumatology, and urology—were recently ranked in the top 10 nationally by U.S. News & World Report.

The building has a modernist design, but was renovated with the patient experience top of mind, with NYU Langone’s expert real estate development and facilities team bringing in more natural light by installing windows in the garage wall and creating an outdoor garden.

“The physical environment plays a powerful role in healing and overall wellbeing, and this informed every aspect of our holistic approach to designing and constructing this facility, both inside and out,” said Vicki Match Suna, AIA, executive vice president and vice dean for real estate development and facilities. “With its open floor plan, integration of art, and connection to nature and natural light, we have created a warm and highly functional space for our patients, visitors, and staff. Built as a Bloomingdale’s department store by renowned architect Edward Durell Stone, the building has been thoughtfully transformed into a state-of-the-art ambulatory care center that respects its original 1970s exterior design.”

Located just one mile from NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island and six blocks from a Long Island Rail Road station, the new facility offers patients greater access to NYU Langone’s one high standard of care across its system of 6 inpatient locations and 300 outpatient sites across the New York metropolitan area and in Florida, with 70 on Long Island alone. Patients can find all their health information and schedule appointments through the NYU Langone Health app or the NYU Langone Health MyChart patient portal.

NYU Langone’s vast outpatient network has earned the Ambulatory Quality and Accountability Award from Vizient Inc., a leading healthcare performance improvement organization, every year since the award’s inception in 2015—and it has been named the No. 1 physician practice by Vizient in all but one of those years. This distinction recognizes NYU Langone’s consistent excellence in delivering high-quality care in five key domains: access to care, quality, efficiency, continuum of care, and equity.