Neiman Marcus has partnered with nonprofit Boss Beauties to sell an NFT of its co-founder Carrie Marcus Neiman.
The Dallas-based luxury retailer’s co-founder is one of 25 NFT images in a collection of strong female leaders that include the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson and artist Frida Kahlo.
Boss Beauties, a charity that sells NFTs to raise money to help women and girls, created the collection in honor of Women’s History Month.
The NFT images are being featured in Neiman Marcus store windows, and the collection will be sold through an auction that starts today at 9 a.m. and ends Saturday. The sale is on OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace.
The image of Carrie Marcus Neiman could fetch well into the six figures or more, based on the 10,000 images that Boss Beauties has for sale on OpenSea. An NFT of a generic female chef was priced at $3,850 on Wednesday. Another image of a woman in camouflage was $4,245.
The auction tender is electronic cash such as Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Neiman Marcus said a portion of proceeds from the Carrie Marcus Neiman NFT will be donated to Boss Beauties’ program to fund scholarships and mentoring programs including at Neiman Marcus.
Last year, sales of NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, reached $25 billion, which is about what shoppers spend buying books in a year and dwarfs U.S. art dealers’ combined sales of $9.2 billion, according to IBISWorld.
And with NFTs in demand, retailers are going to try to get in on the action. The U.K.’s Selfridges department store said in January that it was the first retailer to sell NFTs over the counter.
Christie’s, the largest auction house, said its 2021 sales were about $7.1 billion, and $150 million of that was from NFTs.
Christie’s has devoted an explainer page to NFTs, which are unique, digital certificates that are stored on a blockchain and can be owned like any asset.
The newfound focus on Carrie Marcus Neiman stems from a book by her great niece, Jerrie Marcus Smith, who was 16 when her aunt died in 1953. A Girl Named Carrie: The Visionary Who Created Neiman Marcus and Set the Standard for Fashion was published late last year.
Neiman Marcus is using its co-founder’s NFT to promote its track record as a “majority women-led luxury retailer.” Its workforce outpaces the U.S. population in both gender and racial diversity, said Eric Severson, chief people and belonging officer at Neiman Marcus Group.
Women make up the majority of the company’s board of directors, 59% of its jobs at the vice president level and above and 68% of all of its corporate and store associates positions.
Twitter: @MariaHalkias
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