[6][7] With the establishment of HBC's American division Saks Global in 2024, it is sister brands with department stores Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus.

He worked as a peddler and paper boy before moving to Washington, D.C., where at the age of only 20, and in the still-chaotic and tough economic times of 1867, two years after the United States prevailed in the American Civil War, he established a men's clothing store[12] with his brother Isadore.

[13][14] A. Saks & Co. occupied a storefront in the Avenue House Hotel building at 517 (300–308) 7th Street, N.W., in what is still Washington's downtown shopping district.

[15][17]: 2  Andrew Saks ran the New York store as a family business with his brother Isadore, and his sons Horace and William.

[17]: 4–5 When Bernard's cousin, Adam Gimbel, became president of Saks Fifth Avenue in 1926 after Horace Saks's sudden death, the company expanded, opening seasonal resort branches in Palm Beach (1926), Atlantic City (1927), Lincoln Road in Miami Beach (1929), Southampton on Long Island (1931), Newport, Rhode Island (1935), Sun Valley, Idaho and Westbury, L.I.

After the war, three more downtown stores opened, albeit smaller in scale: Pittsburgh (1949), Philadelphia (1952) and San Francisco (1952)[20] where Saks competed head-on with local luxury champion I.

A few of the new suburban stores were freestanding in suburbs that had a significant downtown shopping district, such as in White Plains, New York (1954) and both Garden City, Long Island and Surfside, near Miami in 1962.

California-based I. Magnin closed in 1995, allowing Saks to acquire some of their locations and open in San Diego's Fashion Valley and expand in Carmel.

As in the 1950s, the company opened a wave of smaller "Main Street" stores in suburbs with downtown shopping, such as Pasadena, Santa Barbara, and San Diego's La Jolla in California, and in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Charleston, South Carolina.

In 1997 SFA moved its main Houston store from the Saks Pavilion to The Galleria and added a new location at Town & Country.

Upon completing the acquisition, Proffitt's, Inc. changed its name to Saks, Inc.[31][32] In November 2001 the first Middle East SFA opened at Kingdom Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

[36][37] In 2004, Saks was enjoying an annual sales growth rate of 7.7% on a same-store basis, but was underperforming Neiman Marcus (+17%) and Nordstrom (+10%).

On October 1, Saks announced the closing of 8 underperforming, mostly smaller SFA stores: Pasadena, Palos Verdes, Mission Viejo, La Jolla and Carmel in California, Garden City NY, Hilton Head SC, and Downtown Minneapolis.

[41][42][43][44][45] In August 2007, the United States Postal Service began an experimental program selling the plus ZIP code extension to businesses.

[47][48][49][50][51][52] In 2012, Saks licensed its first store in Central Asia, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, at the then-new Esentai Mall, together with boutiques of international luxury brands.

[9][70] In April, Saks announced that it would close all 27 of its fur salons, among which New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Beverly Hills, by the end of January 2022.

[72] In June 2022, Saks announced that it would convert the original 1938 store building in Beverly Hills, 9600 Wilshire, into offices and apartments.

SFA Beverly Hills continues to operate from the former I. Magnin and Barneys buildings, which had previously been incorporated into the store complex.

[75][45] In July 2024 Saks announced that it planned to acquire rival retailer Neiman Marcus in a reported $2.65 billion merger.

[77][78] In 2014, Saks fired transgender employee Leyth Jamal after she was allegedly "belittled by coworkers, forced to use the men's room and repeatedly referred to by male pronouns (he and him)".

[83][84] Although Nordstrom reopened on November 9, 2018,[85] Saks Fifth Avenue vacated The Mall of San Juan after two years of litigation.

[96] Williams created an interior reminiscent of his designs for luxurious private residences, with rooms lit by indirect lamps and footlights focused on the clothes.

[96] The store relocated to the adjacent 9570 Wilshire Boulevard in 2024, and the original location will be converted into a mixed-use development by Hudson's Bay Company.