Only Barneys New York holds the answers to such esoterica. It’s the level playing field of fashion, appealing to magnates and celebrities and tourists alike, a brand that, for all its overreaching of recent years, remains remarkably durable.
Under the guidance of the chief executive, Mark Lee, who was hired last year, Barneys is updating its men’s-wear offerings, hoping to restore its place of privilege for emerging designers and styles, beginning with the redesigned Co-Op.
The old Co-Op was the Grand Central Terminal of aspirational retail, a scrum of high and low, luxe and ham-handed hip. It was as close as Barneys got to a glam shopping experience, and it could be blinding.
But there’s little remarkable about the new Co-Op space, wide and long and inconsistently lighted, with stomach-level racks stuffed full of clothes that, from afar, look half black. Colors appear like oxygen tanks on icy mountaintops, badly needed and hard to come by. A Co-Op cafe, Genes @ Co-Op, looks like the situation room from “24,” each seat matched to a screen embedded into a long communal table. You’d maybe send your 7-year-old there to distract him as you try on Stone Island coats.
Into this mush walked Usher (looking lumpy, it must be said), who was quickly surrounded by a constellation of sales associates, following him from rack to rack as he selected things to take home. “He loves fabrics,” someone told me later. Maybe then he was excited to see sweat pants in a range of materials, from Alexander Wang’s black leather to Opening Ceremony’s heavy rustic wool. For real sweating, those pants.
In places, the Co-Op is still the store’s nexus of forward thinking: killer Junya Watanabe Comme des Garçons pieces, including a raspy brown argyle shirt with blue sleeves ($915); a long, rumpled horror-film-worthy black coat by Silent by Damir Doma ($1,340), or an appealingly slouchy alpaca sweater by Patrik Ervell ($350).
Now on the eighth floor, the Co-Op has never felt less connected to the rest of the store. Step down onto the untrammeled seventh floor, with its green cashmere Regent sport coats ($3,095), seas of Incotex trousers and a tribute display to Gianni Agnelli’s favorite suit, and it feels as if you’ve left a messy attic for the part of the house father frequents.
On six, it’s where father’s cooler brother hangs out, maybe in the Etro purple, yellow and brown gingham blazer ($1,450), the purple Valentini corduroys, or the rich brown Armani sport coat ($1,395) that, over a series of visits to the store, earned its way into my closet.
Those floors, six and seven, are unambiguous. The Co-Op is supposed to be similarly certain, but it isn’t. Instead, the store’s third and fourth floors are its secret weapons, its progressive soul on display without youth-baiting baggage.
On four, newish lines were impressive, especially Inis Meain, with its inventive Donegal sweaters, or Scout Original, with its bold Cowichan caricatures ($1,250). In the corner, a glut of John Varvatos looked like an old man still dressing in leather and wet with Grecian Formula. In another, oodles of James Perse hung like limp rags.
Downstairs on three, a beige Duckie Brown cashmere coat — belted, not buttoned — was erotically soft ($4,225). It would have looked phenomenal with the nuclear fallout boots (color: “dirty black”) by Alexandre Plokhov ($1,395), or over the beige and white shawl V-neck sweater by Alexander McQueen ($795). Off on one side were Raf Simons, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten: in a dream world, this is usually what I’m dressed in.
Just downstairs, on the shiny glass-and-metal second floor, with its Italian designers and a sense of recklessness in the air, things got tough on the eyes once again; a whole column could be devoted to the glittering fuchsia mock-neck by Prada ($860), a refugee from a costumer’s closet. Better was the ground floor, with the promising collection by Piombo, one of the store’s latest additions, especially the burnt red pants, or the beefy green car coat ($1,095). (Best to ignore the casual-wear from brands that should stick to suits — denim from Kiton and Brioni, say.)
What you forget about Barneys is that it’s a department store. Barneys is for everyone: for the sad-looking gentleman sheepishly asking to try on a pair of velvet Louboutin slippers with patent leather toes ($995); for the overly tanned, slightly balding 40-something guy trying on slick, tight coats over his skinny jeans; for the older fellow eyeing Berlutis on the ground floor; for the woman who stepped out of the elevator on eight and chirped, “Is this the jeans floor?”
Yana Paskova for The New York Times
The staff is ubiquitous, and extremely helpful, likely because so many customers appear to be in need of so much help, with money to spend and the sincere hope that someone will tell them how to do it.
On the fourth floor, as I was salivating over a navy Nigel Cabourn coat with a bottom half made of Harris tweed, I saw a customer who needed no such assistance. In a sharp blue puffy vest and perfectly fitting jeans, he was walking purposefully but regretfully toward the elevator, telling his friend how much he loved that one jacket, but the fit just wasn’t quite right.
He looked back over his shoulder a couple of times as if to reconsider, but Cuba Gooding Jr. knew perfectly well that if it didn’t fit well now, it wouldn’t fit well later, and so he left, empty-handed and immaculate.
Barneys New York
HORSE, MEET WATER You can change the store, but you can’t necessarily change who comes through the doors. Barneys still serves many constituencies, and gaining customers at the leading edge doesn’t yet mean sacrificing those bringing up the rear.
HIGH AND DRY As a brand extension, Co-Op is a savvy move, but the new version is no less chaotic than the old one. There’s no narrative, just clothes that tease with lower prices and stranger fabrics (if you’re lucky).
DESERT OASIS Ignore the top and bottom of the store and gun straight for the middle: the third and fourth floors are full of imaginative and beautiful clothes that don’t pander.
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