Style Blog Smells Fish at Barneys
In this week’s Observer, our very own Simon Doonan writes about how he was strongly encouraged by Barneys brass to lend the store’s holiday windows a “green” theme. But after style bloggers at Fashionista gave the street-facing displays the old once-over, they apparently became concerned about all the blinking lights, which, as they put it, “seem to suck energy the way we devour Skittles.”
“I don't know the specifics on how much energy the windows use," Julie Gilhart, fashion director at the store, told the blog at a Calvin Klein party last night. "But of course we use electricity, we use energy—but nobody can decide to go totally green overnight. It's a process. We're making a huge effort to be as green as possible, and to spread awareness to our community so they can start making adjustments, too. And we're really proud and excited about that... isn't the reindeer fun?"
Nah, we don't smell fish - and we DO think the Reindeer is fun - but if we're going to talk about Barneys' going so publicly green, it's important to ask questions about how.
We think their efforts to raise awareness and to carry more environmental products are admirable and also really cool, but it's also refreshing that they fully admit they're still a business and that they want to make shoppers happy, not run a kibbutz.
Although if they did run a kibbutz, they could totally farm their own wool for sweater dresses, which will be huge for Fall '08.