All In Agreement

New York Magazine's, The Cut, agrees that department stores secret markdowns may be a way to protect their vendors' egos:

So maybe stores are dealing with the ongoing recession like a celebrity in rehab. Sometimes it's better to get the hard part over with in private rather than splashing it all over the headlines, so you can emerge from hiding with a nice facial and expensive new clothes and everyone thinks things are just great even when, maybe, they're not.

We couldn't have said it better ourselves... and we tired.