Remaking the Image

Morton D. May is a knowledgeable and enthusiastic collector of expressionist, impressionist, abstract and primitive art. He is also president and chief executive of the St. Louis-based May Co., the third largest U.S. retail chain (64 stores). Reasoning that what appeals to him might also interest his customers, May arranges frequent art exhibits in his stores, even gathered a collection of African, New Guinean and Mediterranean primitive art to be sold there. The collection, priced from $3 to $6,000, went quickly. The sale proved once more that May, 51, has been right in doggedly upgrading what he calls May's "fashion image" since he took over eight years ago from his father.

Nearer to Second. The May Co. was once a place to pick up a cheap blouse or a cute salesgirl; Comedian Jack Ben ny, in a famous routine, maintained that he found Wife Mary Livingstone behind a May lingerie counter. Inexpensive clothes are still available at May, but nowadays they have some style; May buyers in New York and Paris quickly pass on the latest fashion news. Aware of its customers' growing affluence, May now stocks more expensive soft goods, has broadened its range to include such luxuries as gourmet foods, costly pool tables and antique furniture.

With this expansiveness has come expansion. May will open eight new stores within the next year, plans to build eight more each year until 1970. Behind Federated and Allied among U.S. chains, it moved closer to second place last spring by acquiring stock control of Oregon's Meier & Frank, a move that caused a bitter battle with Los Angeles' Broadway-Hale. Last week it moved still closer. Long concentrated in the Midwest and West, May moved into the populous Northeast for the first time by buying, for $41 million, Hartford's 118-year-old G. Fox & Co. Silver to Underwear. The May Co. was as much chosen as choosing. Family-owned Fox has been dominated for 30 years by Mrs. Beatrice Fox Auerbach, who is now 78. Approached by several stores, she picked the May Co. partly because Morton May, like herself, is a third-generation merchant. The May Co. was founded in 1877 in boom town Leadville, Colo., by Grandfather David May, who turned from unsuccessful silver prospecting to selling other miners their overalls and red woolen underwear. Spreading east and west as far as Washington and Los Angeles, the store has traditionally allowed local managers broad autonomy. Mrs. Auerbach will join May's board, continue to run her own store until she retires, calling on May's central buying office only when she wants to.

Morton May, called "Buster" by friends, oversees the chain from behind a modernistic slab desk on the eleventh floor of St. Louis' Famous-Barr store, the chain's flagship. Aware that the May Co. ten years ago showed signs of a slowdown under a 22-man board that included 11 members over 65, May continually recruits younger executives, schools them in the company's "fashion image." The curriculum is intended to teach them taste in merchandising in the same sense that May applies it to art collecting. May's aim is to make his stores leading arbiters of good taste in all twelve cities where they are clustered.

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