That’s a wrap. Just a few years shy of its 100th birthday, Barneys New York closed its doors for good on Sunday, February 23, 2020. The retail industry will probably be debating for years to come what or who was to blame for the ultimate demise of Barneys, but the retailer’s current incarnation has finally come to an end.
Fred Pressman once said, “The best value you can offer a customer is personal attention to every detail, and they will return again and again. Ultimately, the customer cares the most about how he or she is treated.”
A little bit of the soul of retail was chipped away each time Barneys changed hands. But for me, the beginning of the end happened one day, under the Perry Capital ownership and Mark Lee leadership, when I walked into the Madison Avenue flagship and the mosaic floor was being torn up and replaced by ubiquitous white marble. I distinctly remember saying to myself—Who does that?
The Barneys liquidation felt like death by a thousand cuts, with the liquidation lingering over four months. The bastion of luxury quickly evolved to look like a giant bargain basement. Holiday windows were replaced by employees walking the streets with liquidation sandwich boards and store decorations replaced by garish sales signage.
While NYC has lost another cultural icon and the future of the Barneys brand remains to be seen, it feels appropriate to walk down memory lane with a timeline.
1923: Barney Pressman pawns his wife’s engagement ring and uses the money to open a 500-square-foot men’s discount clothing store on Seventh Avenue and 17th Street with the slogan “No Bunk, No Junk, No Imitations.”
1930s: Pressman gets cheeky with marketing, putting women encased in barrels outside beer halls to hand out matchbooks with the store’s name and address. He is also the first Manhattan clothier to use radio and television, starting with “Calling All Men to Barney’s” radio spots echoing the Dick Tracy radio series.
1960s: Barney’s son Fred transitions the store from a discounter to a luxury destination, collaborating with Hubert de Givenchy and Pierre Cardin and pioneering the concept of men’s designer clothing.
1970s: Fred Pressman’s youngest sons, Gene and Bob, join the family business and expand it into women’s designer clothing. Fred’s wife, Phyllis, curates the new Chelsea Passage home department.
In 1976 Giorgio Armani introduces his menswear to America, launching at Barneys.
1980s: The apostrophe in Barneys is dropped; artist Ivan Chermayeff creates a new Barneys New York logo, the Co-op is born, and Japanese avant-garde designers pick Barneys to launch collections in the US.
1986: Barneys elevates its advertising using such photographers as Nick Knight, Herb Ritts, and Steven Meisel and emerging supermodels like Linda Evangelista. The women’s store on 17th Street, designed by Peter Marino and Andree Putman, opens and quickly becomes a downtown destination. This store—equipped with a restaurant, hair salon, eclectic designer mix, and cheeky windows designed by Simon Doonan—quickly becomes a downtown destination. The guest list for the opening party reads like a who’s who of Manhattan, including everyone from the mayor to Andy Warhol.
1989: The company forms a holding company with Japanese department store Isetan to operate stores in both countries.
1990: During this decade Barneys opens stores across the country and expands into Japan.
1993: Barneys New York opens the largest new store in New York City since the Great Depression—a 230,000-square-foot Peter Marino-designed flagship on Madison Avenue—and opens the first store outside Manhattan in Chicago.
1994: Barneys opens a West Coast flagship store in Beverly Hills.
1995: The Pressman family intended to close the investment relationship with Isetan, consolidating the Barneys retail business and Isetan investment in the United States real estate for the Barneys flagship stores in New York, Chicago, and Beverly Hills. At the conclusion of this consolidation, the real estate investment and the retail businesses would be held in one company.
1996: Barneys goes bankrupt after the expansion fails and debt piles up largely from the Madison Avenue flagship.
1997: Barneys shutters its Chelsea store.
1999: The Pressman era ends when a vulture fund led by Doug Teitelbaum swoops in to pull Barneys out of bankruptcy without the Pressman brothers.
2000s: The expansion continues with Barneys opening stores in Boston, Dallas, Scottsdale, San Francisco, and Las Vegas.
2004: Jones Apparel Group buys Barneys.
2007: Jones Apparel Group sells Barneys to the Dubai fund Istithmar for more than $800 million, more than twice the price Jones paid for Barneys.
2009: Perry Capital snaps up $200 million of Barneys’ bank debt for about 60 cents on the dollar, said people familiar with the investment.
2011: With the arrival of CEO Mark Lee, the Barneys brand enters a new era of innovation and reinvention.
For Holiday 2011, Barneys New York partners with Lady Gaga to create an unprecedented extravaganza called Gaga’s Workshop. The event, which launched on November 14, included happenings all over New York City (think street performers and inflatable artwork) followed by a ribbon-cutting by Lady Gaga herself.
2012: Perry converts the debt to equity to assume control of Barneys and puts in another roughly $125 million. Perry Capital, led by Richard Perry, and Yucaipa private equity, led by Ron Burkle, take control of Barneys by swapping their debt holdings for equity stakes, shedding $540 million of the company’s $590 million in long-term debt and avoiding a second bankruptcy.
For Holiday 2012, Barneys New York unveils the Electric Holiday video in the windows of its Madison Avenue flagship. Brought to life by the brilliant minds at the Walt Disney Company (with a helping hand from AOL, Air France, and Christie MicroTiles), the moving-art short offers a peek at the high-fashion world through the eyes of the ever-stylish Minnie Mouse.
2013: For Holiday 2013, Barneys New York and Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter introduce A New York Holiday, an unprecedented collaboration celebrating the spirit of the city. Barneys New York and Mr. Carter partnered with some of the most prestigious fashion houses in the world—including Balenciaga, Balmain, Lanvin, and more—to create an exclusive, limited-edition collection inspired by New York City.
2015: Retail giant Seven & i Holdings acquire Barneys Japan. At the time Barneys Japan ran 11 stores across the country and sales totaled 19.5 billion yen in the year ended February 2013.
2016: Perry hires Goldman to try to sell part or all of Barneys, according to people familiar with the matter. Though Amazon.co Inc., TPG Capital, and Swiss luxury conglomerate Cie and Financière Richemont SA engaged, Mr. Perry didn’t view any offers as serious, one of the people said.
Barneys returns to Chelsea and 17th Street with a new store on the same site as the original Barneys.
2019:
- March: In an exclusive partnership with upscale cannabis company Beboe, “The High End,” a luxury cannabis lifestyle and wellness concept shop, launches at the Beverly Hills flagship store. With the launch of The High End, Barneys New York is the first major retailer to introduce a cannabis lifestyle shop. - August: The retailer files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on August 6 with $218 million new financing from Brigade Capital Management LP and B. Riley Financial Inc that allowed for time to find a buyer. As part of that deal, it closes five stores and seven off-price Warehouse locations, leaving five locations including Madison Ave. and Beverly Hills open as well as its e-commerce channels Barneys.com and Barneyswarehouse.com. The retailer is also given an October deadline to find a buyer or liquidate. - September: In typical Barneys fashion they reveal a clever, tongue-in-cheek window campaign at the Madison Avenue flagship declaring “Not Closed” and “Barneys Til I’m Dead.” Barneys CEO Daniella Vitale wrote her first letter directly to consumers via The Window blog. - November: Authentic Brands Group (ABG) finalizes the acquisition and announces a vision to create multi-sensory experiences that will usher Barneys New York into a new era while staying true to the brand’s DNA and joining forces with Saks Fifth Avenue. Authentic Brands will maintain Barneys’ current licensing agreement with Seven & i Holdings, which operates 12 Barneys retail stores in Japan. - December: Just before the end of the year, the Barneys-branded website automatically redirected shoppers to the Saks Fifth Avenue website with a banner reading “Barneys at Saks” and the Barneys Warehouse redirected to “Saks Off Fifth.” Barneys CEO Daniella Vitale announces her departure and move to Tiffany & Co.
2020:
- January: The real liquidations begin with closeout sales of the company’s brick-and-mortar wares operated by B. Riley Financial Inc. - February: Barneys New York closes its doors for good. The Freds Madison Avenue location will continue to operate after the store itself closes, through a partnership between Authentic Brands Group and Infuse Hospitality, a food and beverage management company.
According to ABG, the selling space on Madison Avenue will be reduced and transformed with pop-ups and other formats that have yet to be specified and will be temporary until the landlord re-tenants the space.
