18 Vintage Clothing Ads of Kmart From the 1980s

Kmart clothing advertisements in the 1980s were vibrant, practical, and family-focused, reflecting the retailer’s positioning as an affordable option for everyday fashion. These ads often showcased value, versatility, and popular trends, with a heavy emphasis on serving middle-class families.

S. S. Kresge, the founder of the company that would become Kmart, met variety-store pioneer Frank Winfield Woolworth while working as a traveling salesman and selling to all 19 of Woolworth’s stores at the time. In 1897, Kresge invested $6,700 saved from his job into a five-and-dime store in Memphis, Tennessee. He jointly owned the first store with his former tinware customer, John McCrory. Kresge and McCrory added a second store in downtown Detroit the following year. These were the first S.S. Kresge stores. After two years of partnership, he traded McCrory his share in the Memphis store, plus $3,000, for full ownership of the Detroit store, and formed the Kresge & Wilson Company with his brother-in-law, Charles J. Wilson.

In 1980, Vice Chairman Bernard M. Fauber was elected as the chairman and as the CEO of Kmart. In April 1981, the 2,000th Kmart store opened in Kearny, New Jersey which lasted until May 2021. By the end of 1981, there were 2,055 Kmart stores across the United States and Canada.

In 1987, the Kmart Corporation sold its remaining 76 Kresge and Jupiter stores in the United States to McCrory Stores, and the brands were almost entirely discontinued, although Canadian Kresge and Jupiter stores continued to operate until 1994.

Kmart experimented with co-branding in 1985, when the in-store cafeteria at the store in Canton, Michigan, was converted to a Wendy’s.

Until November 1990, when it was passed by Walmart, Kmart was the second-largest retailer in the United States, after Sears. In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, the corporate office shifted much of its focus from the Kmart stores to other companies it had acquired or created, such as Sports Authority, Builders Square, and Waldenbooks.