The department stores are paying the Times' bills, that's for sure. I don't go out of my way to find ladies' apparel ads. I normally only print the ones next to the articles I want. What you see is probably a pretty fair sample of what the sales department placed. Though anything larger than a quarter page is unlikely to show up here, so if some business advertises exclusively in that size or larger we will miss it. I think those are mostly department stores, too.
LOL, no, we didn't think you were secretly on retainer from Macy's, in one of the most cunning stealth-advertising campaigns of all time.