SIMON Doonan’s office at the Barneys corporate office is not pretty.
The man who has been called an “aesthetic guru,” a “creative genius,” and a “wizard” – famous for creating the usually crowd-pleasing, sometimes provocative, but always fashionable windows at the store – sits at a particle-board desk.
His beige walls have no pictures of models, celebrities or his famous displays; they’re studded with architectural blueprints of Barneys stores, requisitions for work to be done in those stores, and their latest newspaper ads.
It’s positively corporate.
“I think I get my rocks off in the windows and with the advertising,” offers Doonan, by way of explanation. “Most people I know who have very szhooshed up [translation: done or fluffed up, as in ‘szhoosh up that wig!’] offices – maybe their little creative arena is their offices.”
His drab work environment is not the only surprising element of what has been quite a colorful career for the British-born Doonan.
For one thing, he’s much more than a window dresser at Barneys. “People associate me with the windows, and I’m responsible for the window design, and when we install, I go and oversee it; but most of my time is spent on advertising. I’m involved in the development of the strategy as well as the creative.”
He’s pushing to include more text in Barneys catalogs, to make them more accessible. He’s particularly happy with Barneys’ latest newspaper ads, which feature Yiddish words such as “schvitzing” (sweating) and are designed, he says, to bring “regular blokes” back into the store.
The creative window dresser, it turns out, has quite a head for business. He can quote response rates for Barneys direct mailings with ease and says he always checks sales figures after new ads.
“I’m absolutely obsessed with the effectiveness of what I do,” Doonan insists, “so maybe I am a very corporate person in that way.”
Before he gave up his executive vice president title and his administrative duties at Barneys last fall, in fact, he was doing ad budgets, performance reviews and even “ordering toilet paper.”
And he cackles at how he’s always convinced celebrities to kick in part of the cost for windows that feature them. “That’s not about Barneys’ Chapter 11, you know. Why shouldn’t they help out?”
Despite the reputation creative people have as spendthrifts, he sees nothing unusual about his dual interests.
“It’s very hard for me to relate to organizations where there’s a church-and-state thing going on. Half the time you find out the suits are more creative than the creative types standing around and wearing shorts.”
That attitude has earned him comparisons – and a friendship – with Madonna, whom he has featured in his windows several times. She is now co-producing the movie version of his book “Confessions of a Window Dresser.”
“Usually you just pigeonhole people into one category or the other, and people who do both are very unique,” says Liz Rosenberg, Madonna’s rep. Madonna’s “fascination with mixing art and commerce is something Simon does quite well.”
It’s also won him plaudits from his new boss.
“Simon is extremely creative, but on top of that he brings a practicality to the process,” says Allan Questrom, Barneys’ new chief. “It’s not just to entertain but to generate business in the store.”
That’s probably one reason for Doonan’s longevity at Barneys, despite the departure of the family that founded Barneys, the Pressmans, who hired him. While the Pressmans, who were pushed out when the company declared bankruptcy, were highly creative, they weren’t as attentive to the bottom line. Under retailing veteran Questrom, who brings a reputation as a savvy businessman from his days at Federated Department Stores, Barneys now enters a new era.
But how involved will Doonan be? When he gave up his administrative duties and traded his EVP title for that of creative director last fall, Doonan also cut back to two or three days a week.
He has a contract that goes through fall 2001, and still oversees Barneys’ windows, in-store displays and advertising.
But he’s now involved in several other projects as well.
He’s writing the screenplay for the movie version of his book and will also get an executive producer credit. “It’s fun,” he says. “It’s very challenging for me because it’s so different from what I normally do.”
He worked on Christie’s successful auction of Oscar-winners’ dresses and is consulting for the debut issues of Tina Brown’s Talk magazine; he also just wrote an article for a shelter magazine called Nest.
To anyone who knows Doonan, his flurry of non-window-dressing activities is no surprise. Before he came to Barneys, he designed displays for Diane Vreeland at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute
He also designed movie sets, including the art gallery in Eddie Murphy’s “Beverly Hills Cop.”
But his Barneys work is what propelled him into the stratosphere of the fashion world, winning him a series of awards from the National Association of Display Industries – the association of window dressers – The Fashion Group, and, two weeks from now, the American Fashion Awards (formerly known as the Council of Fashion Designers of America awards).
He’ll receive a Special Award “because he has such an extraordinary take on fashion, and his windows are an integral part of the fashion scene,” says Fern Mallis, who heads the group. (The Special Awards also come with a sense of humor. A few years ago, the Wonderbra got one.)
Doonan’s Barneys work has led to ample financial rewards as well. His salary there is rumored to be in the mid-six figures, and his writer/executive producer credits on the “Confessions of a Window Dresser” movie should earn him more than that.
“The window-dresser handle has been great for me,” says Doonan. “It has a cheeky ring to it, and people have fixated on it. Maybe I am a window dresser at heart, but I do a lot of other things.”
When, if ever, will those other things lure him away from Barneys? “I don’t know,” he answers, after a long pause. “I’m enjoying it tremendously. I’m enjoying the stuff we did for this season. And I love it here.”
Personal profileName: Simon DoonanTitle: Creative Director and Window Dresser, BarneysFamily: Lives with partnerLives: New YorkAge: 46