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Saks Fifth Avenue
Type	Subsidiary of Saks Incorporated
Founded	1898
Headquarters	New York, New York, USA
Industry	Retail
Products	Clothing, footwear, handbags, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares.
Website	saksfifthavenue.com

Saks Fifth Avenue is a chain of upscale American department stores that is owned and operated by Saks Fifth Avenue Enterprises (SFAE), a subsidiary of Saks Incorporated. It competes in the upscale department store market with Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys New York. Saks is headquartered in New York City.

Saks Fifth Avenue Enterprises (SFAE) consists of 54 Saks Fifth Avenue stores, 49 Saks Off 5th stores, 62 Club Libby Lu specialty stores, and saks.com.

Saks Fifth Avenue logo used until 2007. The "new" replacement logo is actually a modification of an older logo Saks used until the mid-1990s.

Saks Fifth Avenue is the successor of a business founded by Andrew Saks in 1867 and incorporated in New York in 1902 as Saks & Company. Andrew died in 1912 and in 1923 Saks & Co. merged with Gimbels Brothers, Inc., operating as a separate autonomous subsidiary. On September 15, 1924, Horace Saks and Bernard Gimbel opened Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City.

When Bernard's cousin Adam Gimbel became President of Saks Fifth Avenue in 1926 after Bernard's sudden passing, the company took on national aspirations. The very first branch store opened in 1926 in the city of Palm Beach, Florida as a resort store, followed by a Southampton resort store in 1928. The first full-line year-round Saks store was opened in Chicago in 1929, followed by another resort store in Miami Beach, Florida. In 1938 Saks expanded to the West Coast, opening in Beverly Hills, California. By the end of the 1930s Saks Fifth Avenue had a total of 10 stores, including resort locations such as Sun Valley, Mount Stowe and Newport. More full-line stores followed with Detroit in 1940, Pittsburgh in 1949. In downtown Pittsburgh, the company moved to its own freestanding location approximately one block from its former home on the fourth floor in the downtown Gimbel's flagship. The San Francisco location opened in 1952. More expansion followed from the 1960s through the 1990s including Texas, the Midwest, and even a location in Saudi Arabia, making it a global store. In November 2007, Saks will open its first store in Latin America, located in Mexico City's upscale Santa Fe Mall, as Mr. Carlos Slim, the Mexican mogul, who is one of the richest men in the world, is the largest shareholder of this company.

BATUS Inc. acquired Gimbel Bros., Inc. and its Saks Fifth Avenue subsidiary in 1973. In 1990, BATUS sold Saks to Investcorp S.A., which after investing in the company and weathering the early 1990s recession took Saks public in 1996 as Saks Holdings, Inc. In 1998, Saks Holdings Inc. was acquired by Proffitt's, Inc. Upon closing of the acquisition, Proffitt's changed its name to Saks Incorporated.

In August 2007 the Post Office began an experimental program selling the plus Zip Code extension to businesses. The first company to do this was Saks Fifth Avenue which received the zip code of 10022-SHOE for the eighth floor shoe department in its flagship Fifth Avenue (Manhattan) store.^[1] Today, the New York flagship store accounts for 20% of the entire chain's annual revenue.

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The flagship Saks Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan.

• In the film Clueless, Saks was mentioned as one of Cher and Dionne's favorite department stores.
• Actress Winona Ryder was caught shoplifting at the Saks Fifth Avenue store in Beverly Hills, California, on December 12, 2001.
• In Shrek 2's Kingdom of Far Far Away, it is parodied as Saxon Fifth Avenue.
• In the 2005 film adaptation of Steve Martin's novella Shopgirl, Claire Danes plays Mirabelle Buttersfield, an aspiring artist and sales associate at the infrequently visited glove counter of the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue. Interestingly this was changed for the film; in the novella, Mirabelle works for Neiman Marcus.
• In the 2004 movie Shall We Dance?, Susan Sarandon's character Beverly Clark works at Saks Fifth Avenue.
• In the episode of the Simpsons when Lisa went shopping, she went to "Saks Fifth Grade."
• In an episode of Seinfeld, Helen Seinfeld obtains a gift very valuable in the eyes of Cosmo Kramer (in this case, hand cream), who asks her the source of the item. Helen replies "Saks Fifth Avenue in Miami," upon which Kramer says, "I'll remember that the next time I'm in Florida." Jerry responds sarcastically, saying, "Or if you're ever in Fifth Avenue here in the city."
• In the 1986 Gene Wilder movie, "Haunted Honeymoon", Dom DeLuise's character is disparaging about the activities and supposed humor of his cross dressing nephew by stating "Yes. And, when the police dragged him out of the ladies' room at Saks Fifth Avenue, that was fun!"
• In the popular rock opera "Rent", Saks is mentioned in the song "Christmas Bells", in the line, "Christmas Bells are ringing, Christmas bells are ringing, Christmas bells are singing on t.v., at Saks!"
• In the popular American sitcom 'Friends' in the Season 1 episode 'The One with all the Poker', after sending out resumes to many different companies requesting jobs/interviews, Rachel Green gets offered an interview at Saks Fifth Avenue, to which Phoebe Buffay replies "It's like the Mothership is calling you home!"
• On 'Sex and the city' the flagship store was a favorite shopping spot for Carrie Bradshaw
• The largest shareholder of this company is Mexican mogul, Carlos Slim^{[citation needed]}

• Saks Fifth Avenue Official website