Barneys New York, luxury department store, filed Chapter 11 in 2019, stores closed

Barneys New York was founded in 1923 as a small men's discount clothing store in Manhattan. Under Fred Pressman, it transformed into a luxury destination — the first US store to stock the full Giorgio Armani line in 1976 — and became an icon of New York fashion for decades.

The seeds of its collapse were planted in 2007, when Dubai's Istithmar PJSC bought the chain for $937 million. The price left Barneys with heavy debt just as the 2008 financial crisis hit luxury retail. A 2012 restructuring by Perry Capital cut debt from $590 million to $50 million, but the damage to the business was structural: high rent on flagship stores, especially the Madison Avenue location, consumed the margins that luxury sales should have generated.

In August 2019, Barneys filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time. Fifteen of its 22 stores were slated for closure. In October, Authentic Brands Group bought the company out of bankruptcy for $271 million — but only for its intellectual property. All remaining US stores closed by February 2020. The Barneys name was licensed to Saks Fifth Avenue for shop-in-shops, but the standalone luxury retailer that had defined New York fashion for generations was gone.