Susan Chandler

Sears, Roebuck and Co. has high hopes for its acquisition of Lands' End Inc., the casual apparel catalog company. Although Lands' End down vests and turtlenecks are available in Sears...

A.N. Pritzker knew he had made a mistake. As he sat in the witness stand in Cook County Circuit Court, the patriarch of Chicago's rich and powerful Pritzker family acknowledged...

Women of means can shop anywhere they want. Designer boutiques like Chanel and Gucci welcome them. So do tony department stores like Neiman Marcus and Barneys New York. Unless they...

A lot of people were betting against the success of the Shops at North Bridge. The mall's odd four-story configuration was sure to slight upper-floor tenants, some industry experts warned....

The downturn in the economy has been hard on the nation's merchants, and it's been difficult for charities too. Many people worried about their jobs or their deflated stock portfolios...

It's not news that the 1998 acquisition of Saks Fifth Avenue by regional department store chain Profitt's Inc. has been an expensive misadventure. Only a few years after the deal,...

There's no question that modern Americans are obsessed with criminal investigations. Just look at the number of TV shows that deal with profiling murders, gathering physical evidence and prosecuting offenders....

Crate & Barrel Chief Executive Gordon Segal opens no store before its time. He has spent more than two years refining CB2, the Crate & Barrel spin-off concept aimed at...

Ask almost any designer in Chicago--it's hard to break into the department store market. Big chains want to deal with big suppliers, and department store buyers usually give the little...