Ira Neimark, who started in retail as a department store pageboy and went on to build Bergdorf Goodman into the standard  for luxury shopping, died April 18 in Harrison, NY. He was 97.

As the leader of Bergdorf Goodman for more than 17 years, starting in 1975, Mr. Neimark helped transform it into an arbiter of high fashion that catered to the richest New Yorkers and wealthy visitors from around the world.

He his opinion, the ideal Bergdorf customers should be “the women who went to the best restaurants; the women who stayed in the best hotels; the women who belonged to the best clubs; the women who went to the best resorts.”