This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission.Remember the Spiegel Catalog?

Bridget FoleyThu, April 9, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC

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Remember the Spiegel Catalog?Florence Sullivan

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Classic sportswear is having a moment. Various iterations ran through the spring 2026 collections, challenging critics to come up with new ways to describe tropes of dressing that are essentially, well, essential. In one of the season’s more amusing assessments, Lauren Sherman, an author of the Line Sheet newsletter on Puck, mined a major retail moment of yore to describe Michael Rider’s first collection for Celine. “At its best,” Sherman wrote, “Rider’s take captured the essence of an ’80s Spiegel catalog.”

That comparison elicited two different reactions. From those of a certain age: “Ah, yes! Spiegel!” And from millennials on down: “Huh?” The company Sherman referenced was for a long time at the forefront of a retail channel that loomed large in the American shopping vernacular but is now relegated to charming anachronism: the mail-order catalog.

Spiegel was one of four legendary books that made it possible to shop from one’s sofa, long before the digital age. It distinguished itself from its larger competitors—Sears, Montgomery Ward, and JCPenney—with higher-end merchandise and an emphasis on fashion. And, in the 1960s and ’70s, by its high-profile sponsorship of such television game shows as Holly­wood Squares and The Price Is Right.

The catalog figured prominently in American retail for more than a century, its last Golden Age occurring in the ’80s. As women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers, they had less time for in-store shopping yet an increased need for career clothes. Spiegel’s catalogs, mailed to millions of households, offered shop-from-home convenience with a clear point of view: smart fashion, on trend but never outré, a vibe back in the ether today as designers strive to balance ­Insta-worthy runway flamboyance with real-life needs.

At a time when mail-order catalogs ruled the shopping landscape, the fashionable knew to shop Spiegel.Florence Sullivan

“The catalog page was perfect,” says Mark Cohen, former director of retail studies at Columbia Business School. “The model was perfect; the colorations, style, fit, and finish were all intended to represent a perfect outcome. You wouldn’t find that in a typical department store.”

Founded as a furniture retailer in Chicago in 1865 by German immigrant Joseph Spiegel, the company became known for offering cheap credit under the heartfelt motto: “We trust the people.” It thus built a devoted customer base. Spiegel launched a furniture catalog, not yet mail-order, in 1888; women’s clothes followed in 1912. These two initiatives would evolve into Spiegel’s later identity—a clothing-focused catalog—even though it continued to operate physical stores through most of its history.

While Spiegel took an innovative approach to its catalog, the basic concept was hardly new. It goes way back—to mid-1400s Germany, where Johannes Gutenberg produced one of history’s most consequential inventions. True, his goal for the printing press had less to do with facilitating home delivery of smart sportswear than creating a conduit for mass literacy, but humans are intrinsically entrepreneurial, and before the century’s end, Venetian book publisher Aldus Manutius used one of the machines to print the world’s first known catalog, for his Greek and Latin titles. Centuries later, in the U.S., Benjamin Franklin created his own catalog of scientific titles. And in 1845, the dazzling beacon of American luxury produced the country’s first mail-order catalog: the Tiffany Blue Book, which targeted a tony, decidedly urban clientele.

Smart sportswear was Spiegel’s winning MO.Florence Sullivan

As the 20th century approached, the U.S. population remained largely rural. People had to trek, often many miles, to procure general store necessities and collect their mail. Then, in 1893, Congress authorized funding for Rural Free Delivery (RFD), which became permanent in 1902, leading to an explosion in the mail-order business that would profoundly influence consumer culture, affording millions access to all kinds of products.

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Pushed by Joseph’s youngest son, Arthur, Spiegel sent out its first mail-order book in 1905. Soon it would run photographs alongside illustrations and become one of the first to publish a dedicated Christmas edition. Its initial foray into fashion proved so successful that the company launched a collection by an in-house designer—albeit a fictional one named Martha Lane Adams—that became a separate subsidiary with its own richly illustrated catalog. (Arthur’s interest in visual messaging was passed down through the generations: Filmmaker Spike Jonze is his great-grandson.)

In a post-WWII era, Spiegel catalogs increasingly started to resemble glossy fashion magazines.Florence Sullivan

Business alternately flourished and waned from the ’20s through World War II, after which it enjoyed an uptick. “People came back from the war feeling optimistic and got jobs and started making good money, and consumerism became a major trait of success in the United States,” says Thomaï Serdari, a professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business. “But not everyone had access to the big department stores, which were in major cities.”

Increasingly, Spiegel’s editions mimicked the look of fashion magazines, complete with high-impact covers. Spring/Summer 1958—still the era of New Look proportions—featured a model sitting on a garden bench, the voluminous skirt of her floral dress taking up the entire seat. By Spring/Summer 1962, the silhouette had deflated, the cover look now showing an Easter-worthy canary-yellow suit with a boxy jacket and A-line skirt.

Spike Jonze, Oscar-winning auteur and Spiegel scion, at the spring 2026 Gucci show in Milan.WWD - Getty Images

Despite the catalogs’ visual strength, the business took some hits. In 1965 the Spiegel family sold it to the Beneficial Finance Company, which recruited Henry A. Johnson from Avon as CEO. His aggressive turnaround plan culminated in the 1982 sale of Spiegel to German company Otto Versand, which took it public. A 1984 New York Times feature heralded Johnson’s work. “By aggressively pursuing this ‘upscale’ market, offering more select goods and revamping its catalog,” Winston Williams wrote, “Spiegel has fulfilled Mr. Johnson’s ambition of making it a ‘fine department store in print.’ ”

That store boasted many of the same labels as its brick-and-mortar competitors, like Liz Claiborne, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Eileen Fisher. And it featured some of the world’s most famous models—Brooke Shields, Heidi Klum, Paulina Porizkova, and Stephanie Seymour among them. Yet ultimately these aesthetic upgrades were no match for the coming disruption of the digital revolution. Still, Spiegel hung on valiantly into the new millennium. It published its last catalog in 2012.

In certain corners of TikTok, ’90s-era Spiegel catalogs have piqued the interest of ’90s-obsessed Gen Zers.Florence Sullivan

Now the concept of mail-order seems quaint, even romantic. But it holds a certain appeal for ’90s-obsessed Gen Zers, who are intrigued by the more tactile pleasures enjoyed by past generations, a pretty shopping guide among them. The fashion industry hasn’t given up on catalogs completely either. At Christmas, Nordstrom sent out a 100-page gift guide to customers. “It lands in a different way. It’s more emotionally connective,” Olivia Kim, senior vice president of creative at Nordstrom, told Max Berlinger in a New York Times feature. In another Times story, Marisa Meltzer reported that the Brooklyn boutique Outline had taken the bold step of shuttering its e-commerce in favor of sending out a seasonal catalog to customers (while staying in more flexible contact via Instagram).

Such initiatives are not only nostalgic. “Some retailers consider catalogs a better way to show the customer what products look like on, and how they should wear them,” says Marla Greene, a fashion merchandising and marketing professor at LIM College. “That’s the upside. The downside is they take longer and are more expensive to produce.”

Alas, that downside—print’s sky-high production costs, long lead times, and static messaging—means that, for all their retro appeal, catalogs will likely be confined to niche marketing efforts rather than enjoying a broader comeback. “The art of catalog retail was creating a powerful image and then putting inventory in place that reasonably matched expected demand, which is tough,” Cohen says. “The catalog locks you in on the item and the price. You don’t have flexibility. The internet gives you that flexibility, at the stroke of a key.”

This story appears in the April 2026 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW

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