Confessions of a Window Dresser; Tales from a Life in Fashion

New York: Penguin Studio in association with Callaway Editions, 1998. First published by Penguin Studio in 1998. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Good. Todd Eberle (Front of Jacket photograph). The format is approximately 8.25 inches by 10.25 inches. 239, [1] pages. Illustrated (most in color). Footnotes. Glossary. Signed by the author on the fep. DJ has some edge wear and minor soiling. Minor fep flaw. The irreverent designer of the window displays for Barneys clothing store in New York looks back on his most talked-about creations and his collaborations with today's most controversial artists, in an account featuring color photographs of his work. Simon Doonan (born 1952) is an author, television personality, and the former Creative Director of Barneys NY. His first retail job was a position at Heelas, a department store. He later dressed windows at Aquascutum before moving to Nutters of Savile Row. Invited to dress his windows by the proprietor of Maxfield, a department store in Los Angeles, Doonan moved to the United States in 1978. In 1984 he designed the gallery scene for the movie Beverly Hills Cop. In 1985 he worked for Diana Vreeland at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum. He joined the Barneys staff in 1986 as a window dresser. His windows became a tourist attraction in New York City. He continued to work for Barneys NY until it closed in 2019. He was awarded the prestigious CFDA award for his work at Barneys. In 2011 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Fashion Institute of Technology. He consulted on various other projects including The Warhol Look exhibit at The Whitney Museum in 1997 and the Christies auction of the estate of Marilyn Monroe in 2000. He helped decorate the White House for the first Obama Christmas in 2009. The creative director of Barneys New York shares his life, thoughts, and accomplishments as the "genius-provocateur" behind some of the world's most interesting and controversial window displays. What kind of neurotic exhibitionist psychopathology made me choose a career cavorting around arranging merchandise and props in full view of the rest of humanity?" asks Simon Doonan, the creative genius behind the most anticipated, talked-about, and controversial window displays in the world: the windows at Barney's New York. Involved in the cutting edge of fashion, design, and pop culture for twenty years, Doonan has collaborated with the biggest names in the fashion world--Lagerfield, Lacroix, and Armani--and worked with the most notorious names in the art world--Mapplethorpe, Rauschenberg, and La -Chapelle. Whether making fun of blondes, sending up Sigmund Freud in "Neurotic Yule," or creating caricatures of celebrities--such as Dan Quayle (paired with a giant Mr. Potato Head in a dunce cap)--Doonan's windows have been sometimes irreverent, yet always fearless and entertaining. The first ever popular exploration of the art of window dressing, Confessions of a Window Dresser is illustrated with glorious full color photographs of all Doonan's most infamous "tableaux of contemporary life." This sensational story and wickedly witty commentary (and gossip!) on the hottest trends and people of the last two decades is the ultimate celebration of life in fashion.