Marvin Traub | TIME

Olivia B. Waxman

July 30, 2012 12:00 AM EDT

Marvin Traub, the former Bloomingdale’s chairman who died July 11 at 87, believed that shopping is not about what you need but what you want. “It’s a matter of trying to create satisfaction” and “producing very exciting theater for our consumers,” he said in a 1993 interview to promote his book Like No Other Store. Traub, whom People dubbed the “master of show and sell,” transformed the family business into a national chain and made its flagship store on Manhattan’s Upper East Side a stylish destination for tourists, celebrities, First Ladies and even Queen Elizabeth II. After the U.S. opened trade with China in 1971, Traub opened a China Passage shop in Bloomie’s. He retired in 1991 and became a retail consultant, representing clients like Ralph Lauren and American Express.

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