It was located in a then-mostly residential district, its objective to attract shoppers who wanted a closer place to shop than Downtown Los Angeles.

[6] Other floors displayed clothes and accessories in low glass cases on rosewood stands or on live mannequins, to prevent hanging racks from cluttering sight lines.

The Saddle Shop featured vermillion floor tiles, wall cases of deep red oak, and a life-size plaster likeness of a horse, Bullock's Barney.

[6] For refreshment, there was a top-floor desert-themed tearoom and the adjoining lounge where society women gathered for luncheon fashion shows.

In its heyday, Bullocks Wilshire patrons included celebrities Mae West, John Wayne, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Alfred Hitchcock, Greta Garbo, ZaSu Pitts,[8] Walt Disney,[9] and Clark Gable.

The branches of Woodland Hills and Newport Beach were designed by the Los Angeles firm of Welton Becket and Associates.

Over the years, a shift by other luxury stores and boutiques to the west side of the city/county resulted in the primary Bullocks Wilshire trading area's fall, yet the main store held on as a destination until 1988, when it began its own precipitous decline, hastened under operation by its final owners, Macy's, who had acquired the chain from the Campeau Corporation.

The Wilshire Boulevard store suffered severe damage during the Los Angeles riots of 1992; looters broke in and shattered every display case on the first floor.

[10] The upper floors were not damaged because fleeing staffers shut off the elevators; the original decision to build the store without escalators may have actually saved the landmark from ruin.

Its locations had been converted around 1990 to I. Magnin, a San Francisco-based luxury chain which in turn was shuttered by Federated Department Stores in January 1995 upon its acquisition of Macy's.