Neiman Marcus Catalog

Tutored by Stanley Marcus himself, Ginger Reeder created the famed Neiman Marcus Christmas Catalog with fantasy gifts for 21 years. The mission of Neiman Marcus has always been to offer the very best of everything and year after year the catalog strives to achieve this while also offering gifts that not only tell a story but also reveal the hand of the maker.

Reeder says they would receive hundreds of submissions every year, so she doesn’t always have to go hunting ideas down, but when asked, she rattles off numerous gifts that were brought to fruition by her own curiosity and desire to create unique experiences for the recipient. She says she always has a recipient in mind when she comes up with an idea. She tells that when she saw a biography of the I Dream of Jeanie star Barbara Eden, she was moved to create a literal bottle for working mothers. She tells it as if each of us deserves our own personal and private escape. A place where we cannot be reached and can rest and relax and get away. The result of this idea was a custom yurt.

Ginger explained that Mr. Marcus was one of the people whose uncompromising tastes and expectations helped shape the aesthetic of Nieman Marcus. In 1959, he told her, “It doesn’t matter what it is or how much it costs. It only matters that it is the very best private submarine.”

That maxim is more perceptive and wiser than you might initially give it credit for. What does it mean to give the very best of something? The answer does not always meet our usual ideas of luxury.

As a case in point, one of the best gifts Reeder ever received was a personalized tea blend, given to her by a friend. “She knows I drink black tea,” Reeder said, “so she picked out the blend I would like best. She even made the tea bags herself. It was very simple yet meaningful because it meant so much to me.”

Ginger Reeder

Former Director of the Neiman Marcus Catalog