And as someone who adores luxury, I should be in heaven. Yet I find myself missing the all-encompassing indulgence of the grand department store.<\/p>\n
In their heydays, department stores weren\u2019t simply retail, they were civic landmarks offering something closer to public theatre. You didn\u2019t go only to shop, you went to be. Sociologist Roy Oldenburg called these anchors in community life the \u201cthird place\u201d, which is not home, not work, but a place that relieves the pressure of both. Whether it\u2019s a cafe, the mall or the department store, he says we all need a third space.<\/p>\n
Ballantynes Department Store in central Christchurch has proven to be one of New Zealand’s greatest retail success stories. Photo \/ George Heard<\/p>\n
For me, I crave the grandeur, the ritual and the soft lighting of my preferred third space. I miss the perfume clouds, the faint music, sometimes delivered by an actual pianist. I miss the army of makeup attendants with flawless lipstick, and the handbag saleswoman who regarded everyone with regal disdain until you\u2019d donned white gloves in order to touch the precious leather.<\/p>\n
Designer gowns shimmered behind glass. Price tags required courage. Ralph Lauren, Philippe Starck, Pierre Cardin, Dunhill, Montblanc, Malo, Qeeboo \u2013 these weren\u2019t just brands, they were passports to sophistication. For those of us in the antipodes, they were our shortcut to Europe.<\/p>\n
I took the art of shopping<\/a> seriously. A friend once taught me to \u201cdent the tin on his head\u201d, referring to the helmet on the American Express Centurion. I did. Happily. And in return, I was warmly welcomed at every department store counter.<\/p>\n Then the terrain shifted, and the music stopped. First came the headlines: Macy\u2019s shuttering 150 stores. John Lewis, Debenhams, Nordstrom, names that once ruled the high street began to vanish or reinvent. I fretted for Selfridges as shoppers migrated to mega malls and later, online.<\/p>\n Covid finished what e-commerce had started<\/a>. People stopped coming into the city. They worked from cupboards and lived in slouch pants with no need for a lunchtime lipstick. Immigration brought new communities without nostalgic ties to our inner-city icons. And closer to home, Queen St\u2019s endless roadworks, rising homelessness and crime anxiety dealt painful blows to Smith & Caughey\u2019s, that grand old dame.<\/p>\n Then came the coup de grace. Millennials and Gen Z, with their complicated relationship to luxury, turned away entirely. Even DFS Galleria,<\/a> once a playground for well-heeled Gen Zs, has met its Waterloo and shut its doors in September. And now, Ballantyne\u2019s, the last of New Zealand\u2019s great old department stores, has sounded the retreat.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a conundrum. Younger consumers still crave design and exclusivity, but they find the traditional department store impersonal and outdated. They want storytelling, digital integration and brands that mirror their values. They expect activism and experiences with their accessories. To them, the department store feels like their grandmother\u2019s idea of glamour, all marble and good manners.<\/p>\n Luxury groups took notice. In the early 2000s, around half of luxury sales<\/a> came through department store channels. Today, more than 80% are direct-to-consumer, through sleek monobrand boutiques where experience, margins and data stay firmly in-house.<\/p>\n These flagship stores aren\u2019t just shops, they\u2019re \u201cexperience centres\u201d built to seduce. Personal welcomes by well-tailored hosts sporting well-defined muscles, champagne by the glass, curated playlists, selfies with logo walls, all in service of one narrative: our brand is your lifestyle.<\/p>\n And so, the empire of the department store has fractured into a thousand boutique kingdoms. We no longer browse emporiums; we pilgrimage to brand temples.<\/p>\n Maybe I\u2019m just old school, the kind who still wants to smell Chanel in the air and hear the polite ding of an elevator, but I miss being called \u201cMadam\u201d by someone with red lipstick and a French accent, and I miss asking \u201cdo these gloves come in mink?\u201d without being judged.<\/p>\n But let\u2019s be honest, the department store is now a ghost of retail past, drifting somewhere between nostalgia and liquidation. The writing was on the marble wall.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve traded cashmere for convenience and the ritual for transaction. Where once we found lipstick, lingerie, linen and a light lunch under one chandeliered roof, now our retail therapy arrives three days later in a box that smells of cardboard and disappointment. Where\u2019s the thrill in that? I get more excitement from getting Wordle in three.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not that younger consumers don\u2019t value ritual, they do, but their \u201cthird spaces\u201d are sneaker drops, boutique activations, even digital communities where identity is as staged as it once was in front of a mirrored perfume counter.<\/p>\n So while Millennials and Gen Z may have finished off the retail cathedral, in a way we all played a part. We wanted speed. We wanted savings. We wanted \u201cfree returns\u201d. And we got them, with the death of a little everyday theatre.<\/p>\n Which is why I\u2019ll light a candle (Ecoya collector\u2019s edition) for the grand dames that dressed us, indulged us and occasionally looked down on us. You were beautiful, expensive and faintly intimidating, just how I like my retail experiences.<\/p>\n RIP, department stores.<\/p>\n Disclaimer: I\u2019ve never actually asked for anything in mink, but I\u2019ve often fantasised about it and Pead assisted Smith & Caughey\u2019s<\/a> with the comms supporting its closure.<\/p>\nSmith & Caughey\u2019s reigned on Queen Street for 145 years before closing. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
DFS Galleria Auckland last day sale \u2013 discounts on wine. Photo \/ DFS New Zealand Instagram<\/p>\n