Famous-Barr

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Famous-Barr was the St. Louis department-store institution created in 1911 when David May’s Famous Clothing Store joined the William Barr Dry Goods Company. Its roots ran deeper: the Famous store traced to the nineteenth-century downtown clothing trade, while Barr was a well-known local dry-goods name.

The new company became the flagship retail presence of the May Department Stores Company, whose corporate center was in St. Louis. Famous-Barr occupied the lower floors of downtown’s Railway Exchange Building, opened in 1914 at 600 Locust Street—a massive shopping destination where office-building scale met department-store ambition.

For generations, Famous-Barr carried the full department-store ritual across St. Louis and the Midwest: fashion, home goods, gifts, cosmetics, holiday errands, and the peculiar confidence that a serious purchase required several floors and an escalator. It remained a May division until Federated Department Stores completed its acquisition of May on August 30, 2005. The Famous-Barr name was retired in September 2006 as stores were converted to Macy’s.

Our Famous-Barr collection celebrates the grand old St. Louis retail machine: bargain-hunting legend, downtown landmark, and a glorious reminder that shopping once came with architecture, elevators, and enough square footage to lose an afternoon in.