“I took Barneys wide, opening its doors to women’s wear, to sportswear, to cosmetics, to restaurants. I took it across the country and then around the world. With a team of the best, we made Barneys young, sexy, and essential.” And we’re off, with Gene Pressman, our chatty narrator, telling us that the special Barneys sauce was “all in the mix.”
That “all in the mix” meant being the first retailer to carry designers such as Armani (“The Giorgio Armani Couture Collection. Unavailable to Everyone But Barneys.”), Azzedine Alaïa, Rei Kawakubo, and Dries Van Noten, “one of Barneys’ proudest discoveries.” It meant in-store displays with a ‘why-didn’t-I-think-of-that’ sensibility; the legendary Warehouse Sale; and, to anyone who ever walked by the Madison Avenue storefront, it meant being titillated by whatever new and outrageous window displays that Simon Doonan, the Wizard of Shock, might dream up.
