Macy's

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• Top 6 Department Stores of All Time

  Currently #1 · score 0

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• Nordstrom

  Nordstrom began as a single shoe store, Wallin & Nordstrom, opened in Seattle in 1901 by Swedish immigrant John W. Nordstrom, and it expanded gradually over decades into a full-line department store chain particularly known for an unusually strong customer service reputation. The company's customer service culture became legendary within the retail industry, including a widely circulated (and much-debated in its exact accuracy) story about a Nordstrom store accepting a tire return despite never having sold tires, a story frequently cited in business schools as an example of extreme customer-first policy. Nordstrom Rack, the company's off-price retail division launched in 1973, let the brand extend discounted access to its merchandise to a broader, more price-conscious customer base while preserving its flagship stores' more upscale full-price positioning. Nordstrom's combination of its legendary customer-service reputation and its successful off-price Rack division has made it one of the most respected department store chains in American retail.

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• Sears

  Sears began as a mail-order watch business founded by Richard Sears in 1886, and its subsequent mail-order catalog, offering everything from clothing to entire mail-order houses, made it one of the most significant retail forces in American history for well over a century. Sears pioneered numerous major retail innovations, including the Craftsman and Kenmore private-label brands and, for a time, held the title of largest retailer in the United States, with its catalog serving as a genuine lifeline for rural Americans without easy access to city stores. The company's dramatic decline through the 2000s and 2010s, culminating in a 2018 bankruptcy filing, became one of the most widely studied cautionary tales of legacy retail failing to adapt to e-commerce and changing consumer habits, despite its historic dominance for most of the 20th century. Sears's combination of its historic mail-order catalog dominance and its dramatic, closely watched later decline has made it one of the most historically significant department store chains in American retail history.

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• JCPenney

  JCPenney was founded by James Cash Penney in Kemmerer, Wyoming in 1902, originally as a single dry goods store called the Golden Rule, built around a business philosophy explicitly named for treating customers as the founder would want to be treated himself. The chain grew into a major national department store brand known particularly for its middle-market positioning, offering more accessible pricing than higher-end department stores while maintaining a broader merchandise selection than discount retailers. JCPenney's widely publicized and ultimately unsuccessful 2012 attempt to eliminate coupons and sales in favor of simplified "everyday low pricing," led by former Apple retail executive Ron Johnson, became one of the most closely studied retail strategy failures in recent business history after it alienated the chain's price-conscious core customer base. JCPenney's combination of its century-long middle-market department store legacy and its widely studied 2012 pricing-strategy failure has made it one of the most instructive department store chains in American retail history.

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• Kohl's

  Kohl's began as a Milwaukee grocery store chain founded by Polish immigrant Maxwell Kohl in 1927, before the company transitioned into department store retail in the 1960s and eventually sold off its original grocery operations entirely to focus on apparel and home goods. The chain built its business model around suburban strip-mall locations rather than traditional indoor shopping malls, a strategic choice that gave it more convenient, easily accessible parking and store access than mall-anchor competitors during a period when many other department stores were mall-dependent. Kohl's became known for its extensive loyalty rewards program and frequent significant discount promotions, along with more recent partnerships allowing in-store Amazon returns, reflecting an effort to drive consistent store foot traffic in an increasingly online-shopping-dominated retail environment. Kohl's combination of its suburban strip-mall retail strategy and its aggressive loyalty and discount promotional model has made it one of the most resilient traditional department store chains in modern American retail.

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• Neiman Marcus

  Neiman Marcus was founded in Dallas in 1907 by Herbert Marcus, his sister Carrie Marcus Neiman, and her husband Al Neiman, built from the outset as a purveyor of high-end luxury fashion at a time when most Texas retailers focused on more practical, mass-market goods. The store's annual Christmas Book catalog became famous for its outlandish, ultra-high-priced "fantasy gifts," including items like his-and-hers submarines and private jets, generating significant national media attention each holiday season disproportionate to the catalog's actual sales. Neiman Marcus became closely associated with Texas's specific brand of high-end luxury retail culture, and its stores' emphasis on personal styling services and an elevated, exclusive shopping experience distinguished it from more broadly accessible department store competitors. Neiman Marcus's combination of its luxury-first positioning since its 1907 founding and its famously outlandish annual Christmas Book has made it one of the most distinctive high-end department store chains in the country.

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More in Shopping & Products

• Guess

  Guess was founded in 1981 in Los Angeles by the Marciano brothers, French immigrants who had previously worked in the fashion industry in Europe, and the company built its early identity specifically around introducing European-style, tighter-fitting designer jeans to the American market at a time when American denim brands favored looser, more traditional cuts. The brand became particularly known for its sultry black-and-white advertising campaigns throughout the 1980s and 1990s, which launched the careers of numerous prominent fashion models and became closely associated with Guess's broader glamorous, aspirational brand identity beyond denim specifically. Guess expanded significantly beyond jeans into a full lifestyle apparel and accessories brand, though its denim line remained central to the company's founding identity and continued commercial significance across changing fashion eras since its 1981 founding. Guess's combination of its founders' European-influenced tighter-fit denim innovation and its iconic black-and-white advertising campaigns has made it one of the most culturally significant designer denim brands in American fashion history.

• True Religion

  True Religion was founded in 2002 in Los Angeles by Jeff Lubell, and the brand became one of the most commercially significant premium denim labels of the mid-2000s, particularly known for its distinctive oversized, curved contrast stitching on the back pockets, which became one of the most recognized denim design elements of that era. The brand's jeans became closely associated with mid-2000s celebrity and hip-hop culture specifically, frequently worn by musicians and reality television personalities during that period, and True Religion's visible branding and premium pricing reflected the broader 2000s premium designer denim boom that brands like True Religion and Diesel helped drive. True Religion filed for bankruptcy protection multiple times in the 2010s, reflecting the broader decline of the premium designer denim category as fashion trends shifted away from the bold, heavily branded denim styles that had defined the brand's earlier commercial peak. True Religion's combination of its iconic contrast-stitching design and its close association with mid-2000s celebrity culture has made it one of the most culturally emblematic denim brands of that specific fashion era.

• Diesel

  Diesel was founded in 1978 in Italy by Renzo Rosso, and the brand built its identity around a deliberately irreverent, provocative approach to denim fashion, positioning Diesel jeans within the premium designer denim category rather than competing directly with traditional American workwear-heritage denim brands. The company became particularly known for its unconventional, often controversial advertising campaigns, and Diesel's "Be Stupid" campaign, launched in 2010, generated significant public discussion for its deliberately provocative messaging challenging conventional advertising approaches within the fashion industry. Diesel played a significant role in popularizing premium designer denim more broadly during the late 1990s and 2000s, helping establish a genuinely new market category of jeans priced and marketed similarly to high-fashion designer clothing rather than traditional mass-market denim. Diesel's combination of its deliberately provocative brand identity and its foundational role establishing the premium designer denim category has made it one of the most culturally distinctive denim brands in modern fashion history.

• Lee

  Lee was founded in 1889 by Henry David Lee in Salina, Kansas, and the company introduced the Lee Union-All in 1913, one of the first one-piece work garments combining a shirt and pants into a single overall-style garment specifically designed for industrial and mechanical labor. The company introduced the Lazy S stitching pattern on its back pockets in the 1940s, a design element that became one of the most recognized denim brand identifiers in the industry, and Lee's Riders jeans, introduced around the same era, became particularly popular among cowboys and ranch workers. Lee became one of the "big three" American denim brands alongside Levi's and Wrangler, and the company built a particularly strong reputation for durable workwear before expanding significantly into more general consumer casual denim as American fashion trends shifted jeans from purely functional workwear into everyday mainstream clothing. Lee's combination of its pioneering one-piece Union-All work garment and its status as one of the "big three" foundational American denim brands has made it one of the most historically significant denim companies in American fashion history.

• Wrangler

  Wrangler was introduced in 1947 by Blue Bell, Inc., developed specifically in consultation with professional rodeo cowboys to create jeans engineered for the specific physical demands of horseback riding and rodeo competition, distinguishing Wrangler's design priorities from more general workwear-focused competitors. The brand's close working relationship with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association became a foundational part of Wrangler's marketing identity, and the brand has continued sponsoring rodeo events and cowboys for decades, maintaining an authentic connection to Western ranching and rodeo culture that few competing denim brands have matched. Wrangler's jeans became particularly associated with country music culture as well as rodeo, and the brand's distinctive "W" stitched back-pocket design became one of the most recognized denim branding elements specifically within Western and country lifestyle markets. Wrangler's combination of its foundational design collaboration with professional rodeo cowboys and its sustained authentic connection to Western ranching culture has made it one of the most historically significant denim brands in American Western fashion.