Lord & Taylor was America's oldest department store — and it closed all 38 stores in 2020

Lord & Taylor, founded in 1826, was the oldest department store in the United States. For nearly 200 years, it was a fixture of American retail, operating stores across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.

The store's decline accelerated after a series of ownership changes. In 2019, Lord & Taylor was acquired by Le Tote, a clothing rental startup, in a deal that left the department store with significant liabilities. When the pandemic hit in 2020, the already-struggling chain could not survive the store closures.

In August 2020, Lord & Taylor announced the closure of all 38 remaining stores, ending a 194-year history. The case illustrated how a heritage brand can be destroyed by a combination of structural decline (department store format), financial engineering (private equity and startup acquisitions) and an external shock (pandemic). The brand's age was not a protection — it was a measure of how much had been lost.