Zina Smirnova

Saks Fifth Avenue is the premier destination for luxury fashion, driven by a mission to help customers express themselves through relevant and inspiring style. Since our inception in 1924, we have delivered one-of-a-kind shopping experiences, featuring an expertly curated assortment of fashion and highly personalized customer service. Our unique approach combines an emphasis on the digital customer experience with a strong connection to a network of 41 extraordinary stores across North America for seamless, all-channel shopping.

History of Saks Fifth Avenue

Saks Fifth Avenue's Inception

Saks Fifth Avenue was the brainchild of Horace Saks and Bernard Gimbel, who operated independent retail stores on New York's 34th Street at Herald Square in the early 1900s. Their dream was to construct a unique specialty store that would become synonymous with fashionable, gracious living. The combined financial input of these great merchant families led to the purchase of a site between 49th and 50th Streets on upper Fifth Avenue, then jointly occupied by the Democratic Club and the Buckingham Hotel. With the opening of its founders' "dream store" on September 15, 1924, Saks Fifth Avenue became the first large retail operation to locate in what was then primarily a residential district. By offering the finest quality men's and women's fashions, as well as an extraordinary program of customer services, Saks Fifth Avenue has become the byword for taste and elegance.

Saks Fifth Avenue, 1924 to 1972

The merging of the Saks and Gimbel families resulted in more than just the construction of Saks Fifth Avenue. 30-year-old Adam Gimbel (Bernard's cousin) became Horace Saks' assistant. With the sudden death of Horace Saks in 1926, Adam Gimbel became President of Saks Fifth Avenue, bringing with him the imaginative foresight that has carried Saks Fifth Avenue to the zenith of its success.

Adam Gimbel also established a Saks empire, with branch stores reaching from coast to coast. When he retired in 1969, he was a legend in his own time. Adam Gimbel's first action was to redecorate the entire flagship store in the opulent Art Moderne style from the 1925 Paris Exposition, creating a series of specialty shops within the grand luxury of Saks Fifth Avenue. His intuitive perception was demonstrated as Adam traveled all over the world in search of those items that would set Saks Fifth Avenue eminently above other specialty stores.

Saks Fifth Avenue, 1972 to the Present

Between 1972 and 1989, 20 new stores opened throughout the country, many in Texas and the Midwest, and eight stores were replaced by newer ones in the same markets. A renovation of the New York flagship began in 1978, with the installation of an escalator service in 1979 and the construction of a 36-floor office and retail complex directly behind the store, which was completed in spring 1990. Saks' portion of this tower resulted in nearly 30% more selling space for the New York City store and was built in partnership with the Swiss Bank Corporation.

In 1973, Saks & Company was acquired by BATUS, a subsidiary of B.A.T. Industries PLC through its acquisition of Gimbel Bros., Inc. In July 1990, affiliates of Investcorp S.A. ("Investcorp") and a group of international investors acquired Saks & Company from B.A.T., beginning a new chapter in the life of Saks Fifth Avenue. Philip B. Miller joined Saks Fifth Avenue in 1990 as Vice Chairman of Saks Fifth Avenue and as Director of Saks Holdings, Inc. He was appointed to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Saks Fifth Avenue in 1993 and at Saks Holdings, Inc., in 1995.

In late 1994, Saks Fifth Avenue undertook a major initiative to intensify its presence on the West Coast by acquiring four former I. Magnin stores in Beverly Hills, Carmel, San Diego and Phoenix. With the August 1995 opening of Saks West in Beverly Hills, Saks Fifth Avenue became Beverly Hills' largest specialty store, with 260,000 combined square feet between the expanded and renovated Saks East and new Saks West, which houses all men's categories, plus women's special sizes (Petite Collections and Salon Z). In August 1997, Saks Fifth Avenue opened a new men's store in San Francisco on Post Street, creating more women's designer selling space in the current San Francisco location. A strategy to intensify Saks Fifth Avenue's presence in Texas began with the relocation of the Houston store to the Galleria on September 11, 1997 and the relocation of the Dallas store within the Dallas Galleria in September 1999.

In 1996, Saks Fifth Avenue attained a long-term goal and became a public company as Saks Holdings, Inc. The initial public offering was completed on May 21, 1996, with 16 million shares outstanding. It traded its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "SKS" until September 1998.

On September 17, 1998, Saks Holdings, Inc. and Proffitt's, Inc., a leading regional department store company, completed a merger transaction whereby Saks Fifth Avenue became a division of Proffitt's, Inc. In conjunction with the merger, the corporate name of Proffitt's, Inc. was changed to Saks Incorporated and the stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "SKS" on September 18.

In the summer of 2000, Saks Fifth Avenue launched saks.com, offering in-store categories, as well as exclusive products and content.

On November 4, 2013, Saks Incorporated was acquired by HBC, a holding company of portfolio businesses that operate at the intersection of retail and real estate.

In 2021, HBC partnered with Insight Partners to establish Saks Fifth Avenue’s ecommerce business as a standalone company known as Saks. Saks Fifth Avenue is redefining the luxury shopping experience through a seamless connection between ecommerce and stores, enabling the brand to deliver the experience customers know and love.

Contact Information

Customer Service

To speak with a saks.com Sales Associate by phone, feel free to call 1.877.551.7257, 6am - Midnight ET. If you are calling from outside of the U.S. or Canada, please dial 1-877-551-SAKS (7257).

Learn about boba tea's ingredients and history, and glean some ideas on how to make it at home—including with boba tea kits. Join one of the biggest, chewiest, widest-strawed portable beverage trends of the last decade.

Boba tea, aka bubble tea, is a unique blend of tea, milk, sugar and chewy tapioca pearls that is refreshing and satisfying. Born in Taiwan, the beverage has gone on to find fans around the world and now comes in hundreds of flavors and styles. Here's everything you should know about what boba tea is, what it is made of and even how to make it yourself.

What Is Boba Tea?

Boba tea is made of tea, milk, water, sugar and tapioca pearls. Iced sweet milky tea is given a good cocktail-style shake, after which tapioca pearls are added. Typical versions use black, green or oolong tea, although recently more flavors and types have appeared. These range from mocha to fruit-flavored milks with pearls that can be black, white or fruity. Most boba tea is sweet and milky, and the milk can vary from whole milk to nonfat, coconut to almond. Others, such as the fruit-infused versions, might not even contain tea or milk.

However, it is those tapioca pearls that are boba tea's defining characteristic. Nestled at the bottom of each glass, their chewy texture is what makes this unique beverage such a fan favorite. Made from cassava starch mixed with boiling water, the resulting dough is rolled and cut into balls and cooked again in either a brown sugar syrup to achieve the characteristic black color or a plain sugar syrup for white or other flavored pearls. This also gives the boba just a hint of sweetness.

Popping boba, on the other hand, are made either from agar-agar powder, a seaweed extract, or calcium compounds, fruit juice, water and a sweetener. These pearls burst with refreshing fruit juice when bitten and are a more recent addition that occurred with the advent of fruit-based boba teas.

Other additions can include grass, aloe or coffee jellies, taro or sweet potato balls, fresh fruit or red beans, among others.

Origins and History of Boba Tea

Sweet milky tea and tapioca pearls each have a long history in Taiwanese cuisine. The blend of tea and milk was perfected in 1949 when Chang Fan Shu, a former bartender, opened a tea shop. Using his mixology skills and a cocktail shaker, he created a perfect blend of tea and milk topped with a fine froth (the original bubbles in bubble tea) that customers loved.

Meanwhile, tapioca pearls were a popular dessert topping, especially on Taiwan's fruit- and fresh crème-smothered shaved ice extravaganzas. Made from cassava, a South American plant that came to Taiwan during Japanese rule from 1895 to 1945, the chewy pearls were favored for their colorful contrast.

The two, however, didn't meet until the 1980s. The exact origin story remains unclear, with some claiming Lin Hsiu Hui, product manager for Chun Shui Tang, a tea shop, tipped some pearls into her tea during a staff meeting, and others stating it was invented by Hanlin Tea Room. Regardless, once the combination was made, Taiwan's favorite beverage was born.

The term "boba" has a clear history, though. The bigger-than-usual black tapioca balls borrowed their moniker from a Chinese slang term which was also the nickname for Amy Yip, a Taiwanese movie actress and sex symbol of the same era, famed for her ample bosom.

Nutritional Value & Healthful Benefits

Made from cassava starch or a seaweed extract, the pearls are naturally gluten-free and vegan. Cassava is a good source of vitamin C, an antioxidant that can reduce inflammation and supports collagen production. It is also a source of fiber and vitamin B6, which helps with brain development and supports nervous system and immune system health.

While boba tea can be a high-calorie drink because of the milk and sugar, this can be balanced by switching to a fruit-based version or simply passing on the milk. A fruit base increases the vitamins, while a simple tea version also lets you enjoy the benefits of boba tea with less concern for calories. Many boba tea shops also allow customers to adjust the level of sweetness.

How to Make Boba Tea

Boba tea is simple to make, and with a bit of time, patience and practice you can tailor the recipe to your taste buds' preferences.

Steep your favorite tea in boiling water for five minutes for maximum flavor. You can also cold-brew the tea, letting it sit for upward of 12 hours in the refrigerator for a slightly less bitter and less caffeinated base. Blend it with your preferred milk to taste and add the syrup-cooked boba for a picture-perfect homemade boba tea.

Boba tea pearls can be purchased pre-made or can be handmade by mixing cassava starch with boiling water to form a dough to roll out and cut into balls. The tapioca pearls start out white but turn black when cooked in a brown sugar syrup. Some people add black food coloring, but a hearty brown sugar syrup should also do the trick.

Boba tea kits are another option, especially nice for beginners learning the steps to creating a unique brew without any guesswork.

Where Can I Buy Boba Tea?

These days, boba tea can be found in almost any city and its suburbs anywhere in the world. In the U.S. alone, there are nearly 3,400 shops, with the market only expected to grow.

Boba tea kits or the ingredients—tea, fruit juice, sugar, cassava starch (or tapioca pearls) and milk—are available in shops or online. Popping boba can also be ordered online or made at home with items purchased at specialty shops or online.

Bottom Line

Boba tea is a refreshing beverage phenomenon full of sweetness and chewiness that comes in an endless variety of flavors and styles. Next time you head out for a coffee, try boba tea instead and see what delicious fun you can have. You might just discover your new favorite beverage.

What is StarryNift?

StarryNift is a global team based in Singapore, USA, Korea and Israel. The founding team consists of blockchain veterans, avid gamers and computer fans with senior management from elite financial and technological institutions, such as Google, Alibaba and JP Morgan. Prior to StarryNift, co-founder and CEO Marta Zhang was one of the founding partners of Bitmain and led venture investments at Temasek. Other StarryNift members have extensive experience in the gaming industry and have different experiences, for example, Anime Doujin Games, Hypercasual and Sandbox Openworlds.

Investors include Monday Capital, Sparkland Capital, Blockwall Capital, CoinGecko Ventures, Gate. Labs, LD Capital and individuals. Investors include Bitmain co-founder Wu Jihan and Woodstock co-founder Pranav Sharma.

StarryNift aims to create an NFT gamification platform and an NFT release platform allowing users to create and sell NFTs in the platform's meta universe, and hopes to give full freedom to user creativity with minimal interference.

"StarryNift is designed to mark the focus of the paradigm shift from terraform to metaverse using the NFT gaming platform based on distributed ledger technology. StarryNift assumes that this is the main stage of the presentation of the NFT collectibles gaming platform.

The metaverse, based on protocol economics, sheds new light on how people participate in social activities, as the standard of the new norm will shift from physical to digital, which means that "ownership" of assets will no longer be commonplace," the report says.

For StarryNift, ensuring the credibility of users is crucial to the development of a metaverse where creative efforts have democratic prices. The virtues of freedom and justice are deeply embedded in the StarryNift platform, and the ratio of reward and utility in relation to the incentive mechanism in the behavioral economy is guaranteed without mutual modifications.

Under the motto "anyone, anywhere and anything", StarryNift aims to challenge traditional platforms where incentives are not distributed fairly for each participant. Against such phenomena, StarryNift intends to serve platforms with minimal intervention.

"StarryNift allows users to single-handedly own their worldview in the metaverse, complementing the full set of tools, creating, collecting and combining their assets, while simultaneously configuring such service functions as artist collaboration, auction, incubation, launch pad offer and black boxes," the press release says.

To increase the popularity of network effects at the initial stage, StarryNift will hold a pre-sale of limited-edition series for blind boxes in early July.

What is an IGO?

IGOs, or Initial Game Offering, are NFT assets from top-tier gaming projects available exclusively on Binance NFT. The assets can launch either via auction, fixed price or mystery boxes.

IGOs are purely for gaming and all drop content will consist of in-game assets such as early-access passes, weapons and items, exclusive Binance cosmetics and skins and much more!

If you’re interested in launching an IGO collection on Binance NFT, please complete the application form. The Binance NFT team will review and contact you if your submission is successful and approved.

StarryNift Genesis Equipment Pack

You will get a random equipment NFT of any quality from the blind box. You can use the equipment to armor the Code Green NFTs with bonus attributes to generate higher rewards in the StarryNift game. In addition, there are limited-edition SSR NFTs, each is a whole set of 6 different SR equipment.

Flow Lunatic

Flow Lunatic

Flow Lunatic is a battle artist, who masters the use of drips and beats and makes the battle like a rhythmic and colorful performance. Equipped with Rhythm Flow Gun, Rhythm Flow Armor, Rhythm Flow Helmet, Rhythm Flow Glove, and Rhythm Flow Boots, Flow Lunatic can use the rhythm as a weapon to penetrate the solid defense and cause huge damage to the enemy.

At a life-or-death moment, Flow Lunatic will arouse the special skill Ultrasonic Wave, which can release incredible shock waves to give the enemy a fierce strike.

Bounty Hunter

Bounty Hunter

This violent Bounty Hunter doesn't belong to any clan, all he wanted is nothing but money.

Bounty Hunter lives in the danger zone full of chaos, where all kinds of thugs running around. As an arms expert, Bounty Hunter is the ruler of this riot area. He designed and made the sophisticated equipment set with Sandstorm Rifle, Sandstorm Armor, Sandstorm Glove, Sandstorm Boots, and Sandstorm Helmet. He always carries a liquor bottle, which you shouldn’t underestimate, as this is his ultimate secret----Sandstorm Bomb, once detonated, everything will turn into ashes.

StarryNift Metaverse

Code Green holders now can come to the Planet to occupy virtual land, initiate battle, win equipment, and trophy rewards. The Genesis equipment armored Code Green can generate higher rewards and profit.

StarryNift will also create diverse scenarios in the metaverse to ensure everyone enjoys the Play-to-Earn fun. NFT virtual idol concerts, treasure hunt jungle, breeding incubation, pet center, trading market, entertainment zone…... More and more intriguing spaces will open to the world.