HENRI BENDEL

While younger Chicagoans may not be familiar with Bendel’s, the elegant midsized department store that once reigned on Manhattan’s 57th Street and later on Fifth Avenue and on Chicago’s Mag Mile, most fashion mavens will recall the store’s iconic brown and white striped logo. When magazine writer and editor Tim Allis learned that a biography had never been published about Henri Bendel, the store’s founder and retail impresario, he thought “What an interesting character—somebody needs to write about him.”

Founded in 1895 in Greenwich Village, New York, Bendel’s became a fashion destination, offering high-end sophisticated European designers—the first to show Chanel designs in America in 1913—and cutting-edge, up-and-coming labels such as Stephen Burrows in the 1970s. It was the ultimate emporium with dresses, gowns, bridal wear plus all the accouterments required for the au courant woman of style—artistic jewelry, handbags, scarves, make-up, and much more. Yet, the name on the door and the personal story associated with it had escaped much of fashion history profiles and discourse. That was until the slightly parallel lives of Bendel and Allis intersected—resulting in the release of Henri Bendel and the Worlds He Fashioned, out this month and marking Allis’ debut as a hardcover author.

Like Bendel, Allis grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana—where Bendel’s Jewish émigré mother, father, and eventually stepfather ran several businesses. Allis, in fact, lived in a subdivision called Bendel Gardens, named after its former landowner. At Southern Methodist University, Allis majored in theater and English and fell into journalism with a summer internship at D Magazine in Dallas. At 24, he moved to New York where he worked as a staff writer at People, followed by a long tenure as a senior editor at In Style. “Those magazines were a lot of fun and a good fit as I had a big enthusiasm for celebrities and show business,” remarks Allis, who dabbles in playwriting as well. “They taught me the value in tight writing and recognizing the potential of a story like Bendel’s.”

Allis sometimes passed the store’s final flagship on Fifth Avenue and wondered if shoppers knew the Southern roots of the name on the door. Years later, a conversation with a friend who had seen a portrait of Bendel at a Lafayette museum, sparked his curiosity to learn more. “It felt as if Bendel had been hiding in my own backyard,” says Allis, “researching him became a sort of homecoming—I learned a lot about Lafayette, including the various emigrants who powered its growth as a prosperous small city and hub of Cajun culture.”

After working in dry goods in small towns in Louisiana, Bendel married a woman from New York whose family traded in millinery supplies. Less than a year later, she died after losing a baby in childbirth. He stayed in the city and quickly became a top milliner. Hence, the lyric “You’re a Bendel bonnet …” from a song in the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes. Soon, he was a well-known tastemaker in the industry, expanding into dresses and furs and importing French couture. Bendel pioneered clearance sales, wrote a nationally syndicated column about general fashion trends, and eventually opened multiple satellite stores. With his success came great wealth, and he built fabulous mansions and collected fine and decorative art on his frequent buying trips.

Allis reveals that Bendel’s little- known private life was deeply intertwined with his professional endeavors. Bendel’s romantic relationships with two male companions, one who would become president of Henri Bendel and remained at the helm for many years, was a closely guarded secret. “As a gay man, I could easily imagine Bendel’s inner struggles and outward balancing act,” shares Allis. With his partner of nearly 20 years, Jeffery McCullough, a design historian, practitioner, and educator at Kean University, today Allis divides his time between Lafayette and New York City, just as Bendel had done.

Allis came to relate to Bendel’s dichotomy between being old-fashioned and forward-thinking. “A part of him wanted to live in the past but he was also determined to sell for the future.” Allis hopes the book restores Bendel’s fame and grants him posthumous liberation. “Fashion changes in the blink of an eye,” notes Allis, “but social norms do so very slowly.” It’s in that spirit that he reintroduces Bendel to a present where hopefully acceptance, individuality, and creativity are very much in style.

For more information visit ulpress.org/collections/coming-soon/products/henri-bendel-and-the-worlds-he-fashioned.