Barneys Boom
Barneys New York has gone Beverly Hills. The Manhattan specialty store will open a 100,000-square-foot unit on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Camden Drive in 1993. The store will be totally owned by the Pressman family, which currently has two locations in New York City. A smaller Barneys store will open in Costa Mesa in February, 1990, part of a joint venture of the Pressman family and Isetan Co. of Japan, which eventually will include 30 Barneys stores in the United States averaging 6,500 square feet. “The L.A. area is our second-largest demographic market,” says Barneys’ Gene Pressman. “It’s a very sophisticated market--not dissimilar from New York, except for the weather. The people in L.A. travel all over and have the best offered to them. We want to bring what we offer to our customer there.”
Healthy Appetites
Madonna, Warren Beatty and Sandra Bernhard, that increasingly familiar Hollywood threesome, recently showed up for dinner at Mario Tamayo’s Cafe Mambo. Then, Tamayo says, they headed for his Melrose Avenue shop, Modern Objects, for a little midnight shopping. The facts, as Tamayo recalls them: “Warren bought five shirts. Madonna picked them out for him. They were all quite fun shirts: two sort of sheer and one with big red polka dots, a black one and a white one with micro-dots.” He adds that neither Madonna nor Bernhard went home with any new duds, but the ones they were wearing were pretty fun themselves: “Madonna was wearing painted jeans with all sorts of wording on them and a short, cropped, red leather jacket. Sandra was wearing jeans with a fabulous gold belt. Warren had a flower-print shirt on. We had a great time with them. They ate everything in the restaurant and then went on to the store.”
It’s a Shoe Thing
Madonna made up for lost shopping time at the Fred Hayman Beverly Hills shop, where she purchased a pair of Manolo Blahnik’s taupe silk dorsay pumps for $415. Kim Basinger also strolled in and bought a pair of $385 Roger Vivier black satin pumps with a rhinestone ball heel, which Vivier originally designed for Marlene Dietrich. Basinger wore them out that night, with a sexy, bat-black cocktail dress. Also picking shoes in the last few days: Joan Van Ark, Lilly Tartikoff and Sue Mengers. We wondered why the shoe department was hopping and asked Hayman’s Katy Sweet. She attributed the action in the newly refurbished area, in part, to “state of the art lighting.” Throughout the store, the lights are self adjusting. When it’s bright outside, the lights automatically dim; as the sun goes down, the voltage increases. Same with the music: when large groups congregate in one area of the store, the music spontaneously quiets down. When things are hushed, the strains increase.
Appealing Details
It looks as if Sports Illustrated is getting a run for its money, now that Details magazine has come out with a swimsuit cover story. Almost all of the 22 poster ads showing the cover were stolen from the bus-stop shelters where they were installed, Listen hears from Dan Gershon, the magazine’s West Coast associate publisher. No mean feat, by the way. A heist involves unscrewing screws, picking locks and making off with the goods in the dead of night, because Gershon has taken to patrolling the shelters by day. You’d think he’d be flattered, but not at these prices. The posters cost $700 apiece to replace, he says.
Leader of the Red Band
Guests attending the opening-night party at the Music Center last week for “Orpheus in the Underworld” were asked to wear black-tie or red. Nobody adhered to the dress code better than band leader Doc Severinsen, who wore a red double-breasted tuxedo with a black-sequin bow tie. Wife Emily was the perfect foil in an all-black, one-shoulder chiffon top and flowing evening pants.
Hilfiger Update
Designer Tommy Hilfiger zipped through town to check out his Rodeo Drive boutique and left behind a few bon mots about baby boomers, teen-age tourists and Dustin Hoffman. Aging boomers first: “They’re looking for clothes with quality, a bit of style and an affordable price. Even I hate fashion.” (He’s age 38.) Then, Hilfiger takes on vacationing teen-age shoppers from Tokyo: “They’ll spend $2,000 in an afternoon in my shop.” The stars of TV’s “thirtysomething” are regular customers of Hilfiger: “I dress most of them for the show. They mix mine with antique clothes.” As for Hoffman: “I saw him on a plane wearing one of my blue work shirts. I know them a mile away.”
