Give Saks Some Slack.

Picture a sample sale or trunk show at an upscale department store if you can. It usually entails a room full of women, draped in their fur coats and weekender-esque purses done up and looking their best while perusing amounts the newest releases of their favorite designers. Saks Fifth Avenue, a mecca for fashionistas and the like for hundreds of years, used to be a place buzzing with people looking to spend their hard earned dollars. Now, the aisles are more bare and their prices are slashed, due to their poor performance.

I used go to Saks when I got a bad grade on a test or felt a little edgy, looking for a pick-me-up. I would usually end up walking out with some nail polish or a few samples a salesgirl would give me after taking pity on me and my sad face. But I cannot even bring myself to go in anymore. It hurts my heart to even think about looking, because if rich people with careers cannot afford it, I certainly am no where close.

Department stores, especially Saks, are doing the worst of the whole retail industry during this economic slump. WWD, a leading fashion news publication, reported that department stores cut 8,600 jobs just in the month of January alone. In fact, Saks recently lowed their credit rating from "stable" to "negative," which means their company is not likely to get further investment.

Not only is their backing at risk, but 1,100 of those 8,600 lost jobs came from inside of the once booming department store. They have cut nine percent of their workforce total, according to Reuters, who also reported they will reduce their capital spending by 50 percent this year, to about $60 million, from 2008. In other words, big huge yikes.

Not that $60 million sounds like that small of a budget. I can only imagine what I would do with $60 million. Probably go to Saks...

However, not all is lost. To draw in customers, perhaps like us poor college students, they are drastically slashing their prices and putting everything on sale. During my birthday weekend in early January, their sale racks were a whooping 80% off, which is like the apocalypse in the world of Saks. According to a lengthy article in the Wall Street Journal, their strategy quickly became slash the prices before any other retailer does, to gain whatever business is left out there.

I pray it will work. While I do love actually actually being able to possibly afford something in the store besides a measly item from the cosmetics department, it only means big trouble in the long run.

Photo by: Richard Drew/AP