The Man Who Turned Barneys Into the Coolest Store in the World

For about 10 years, Glenn and I worked together. He had that cryptic and funny sense of humor. It was always staccato. He wasn’t a man of many words. He delivered that simplicity that [Barneys] became known for. It paired well with our imagery, which was pretty spectacular, whether we went to old photographers and licensed some of their images, or we did our own shoots.

Looking back, do you have a favorite decade of men’s style?

As far as dress codes go, the ’80s were good because they kept going after the ’70s. But as far as the influence of culture, I’d have to say the ’60s because the ’50s were so boring. London became the center of the universe in the ’60s. I mean, The Beatles and all the music and the dressing. The girls wore hot pants, high boots, and had bob cuts. The guys were dressing as mods or rockers. The stores were amazing, the most famous being Biba.

What was unbelievable was in the late ’60s, and people [forget] this, but in New York, “downtown” didn’t really exist yet. Yeah, you had some artists living in the West Village and a few living in the East Village, but Chelsea was just warehouses. There was one enclave on the Upper East Side. It was all the Europeans that came over here that created this little scene. You had very cool clubs and everyone was dressed up, buttoned up, and it was sophisticated. When the ’60s were over, the ’70s were really wild. That’s when you started having club fashion. That helped Barney’s business in a ridiculous way.

You talking about club fashion reminds me of you writing about all the guys coming into Barneys to buy leather pants to wear to Studio 54.

That came from rock ’n’ roll, specifically from Jim Morrison from The Doors. He was, like, this sex machine. The Italian designers—Versace, Armani, and all those guys—they made leather pants. It wasn’t stiff leather. I wore them a few times, but then I went back to jeans. When you’re in the club, it’s so hot when you’re wearing leather. But people didn’t care. The leather pants were tight. The guys that had, excuse me for saying, the balls, they liked that bulging look.

You write about designing the black Barneys New York bag. Did you know you were creating an icon at the time?

I’ll answer it this way. We did things, we liked it, and then other people liked it. Also, the Pressmans preferred very simple things. We don’t believe in tchotchkes and overdoing it. Our style was very clean. And a lot of people don’t understand clean. I remember when Jil Sander first came out, it was hard to sell because it was so beautifully made, but it was very expensive. It didn’t have all the whistles and bells on it. A lot of people didn’t understand that. And the world eventually caught on.

We did the black Barneys bag for ourselves. And then it became iconic. I used to love it because when I used to see customers at other stores like Bergdorf [Goodman], it was inundated with Barneys shopping bags. That used to make me smile. You did things because you believed in them and you liked them. And of course you wanted people to like it, too.