Filenes was founded in Boston in 1881 as William Filene's Sons Co., and was one of the founding members of the Federated Department Stores, Inc.. organization in 1929. It historically catered to the "carriage-trade." In 1988, after the leveraged buy-out of Federated by Campeau Corp. of Toronto, Canada, the division was sold to May Department Stores Co. along with Foley's in the Southwest. It was at this time that Filene's and the equally famous Filene's Basement were disassociated. Filene's Basement is currently owned by Retail Ventures, Inc.

In 1992 Filene's absorbed G. Fox & Co. of Hartford, Connecticut, another division of May Company. The 1990s saw a doubling of the Filene's organization as May invested in new stores and broadened Filene's price and product assortments. In 2002 it assumed operational control of the Kaufmann's stores in western New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.

Effective August 30, 2005, Federated Department Stores completed its previously announced acqusition of May Department Stores, thus reuniting Federated and Filene's. On February 1, 2006 the Filene's/Kaufmann's organization was dissolved and the management of its stores was assumed by Macy's East and the new Macy's Midwest. The store's website was largely consolidated into Macys.com during the spring of 2006. By autumn of the same year, the Filene's name and brand will be phased out as Federated will convert Filene's to the Macy's masthead. The landmark flagship Filene's department store at Downtown Crossing will close in early 2006 and be consolidated across the street in the existing Macy's store.

The store's Downtown Crossing flagship location was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

Filenes was a department store and sold furniture, household furnishing, clothing, fashion and housewares.