The New Luxury Market

What kind of market awaits U.S. retailers in the 1960s? A luxury market, bigger and fancier than anyone dreamed possible a few years ago, says Andrew Goodman, 52, boss of Manhattan's elegant Bergdorf Goodman specialty store. Said Goodman, in a speech to the Garment Salesmen's Guild in Manhattan last week: "No longer is good taste the exclusive property of the few or the rich. During the next decade, price will cease to be the major criterion for larger and larger sections of the population. The new criterion will be style and taste.

"People who five years ago did not know the difference between a Picasso and a piccolo now own excellent reproductions of well-known sculptures and paintings, and are beginning to buy fine originals. Gone are the days when the housewife in East Cupcake did not know, and could not care less, about what silhouette was new or what skirt length was smart. Today, through TV, newspapers, magazines and the movies, she knows what's new and has a pretty good idea of what she wants." When his father started B. G. in 1901, said Goodman, his object was to satisfy "the smallest possible segment of the American population. But in 1959, we sold hundreds of ready-to-wear dresses that retailed for more than $500 and a remarkable quantity for more than $1,000.

"The mink coat, as an end in itself, is already old hat to a growing section of our population." Every woman now wants not just a mink, but a distinctive mink, just as she wants distinction in everything else, even to bathroom faucets, where the latest rage is "24-karat gold faucets shaped like swans and flowers."

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