Oh Beautiful Barneys!

The past few weeks my entire focus has been helping Cathy Jahnke with the grand opening of the east wing at Scottsdale Fashion Square. The east wing houses Barneys New York, a 6,000 sq foot H&M, Forever 21, a concept Banana Republic store, and Sam Fox's latest restaurant Modern Steak, among a slew of other stores.

Cathy came up with the concept "The Mannequin Is Our Muse" and we reached out to valley locals (designers, artists, architects, vendors, and merchants) to create mannequins. We ended up with 123 mannequins! Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys did a mannequin, and we even had mannequins flown in from NYC and California artists. The Armani Exchange mannequin had to be flown to Milan for Mr. Armani's final approval!!!!!

I collaborated on a mannequin with my architect friend Bob Wilkinson. We used floor mats from the 99 cent store. There was a bit of controversy with our mannequin, but I'll save that for another post. She is now standing in my kitchen -- she is a bit freaky but I am pleased with our final product.

It took an insane of amount of work to get the project off the ground. But Cathy is amazing, and she always pulls out all the stops and it comes together quite grandly. During the grand opening weekend we had live entertainment, pedestal modeling, and a huge breakfast. I was at the mall everyday from sunrise until way past sunset. Besides just overseeing the mannequins we had to direct the entertainment and models. Valarie Schad, who also worked on the event, and I nicknamed all the male models "CMs" for Couger Meat, they were all quite delectable but probably at least 10 years our junior ;-)

Everybody kept asking what I thought of the new Barneys, and the event was such a circus that I barely had more than two minutes to whip through the store. I loved going to Barneys in NYC. Kealey and I once ran into Cameron Diaz at the NYC Barneys and she even stopped to chat with us. Going to that store was something that I always did with Brian. Brian and I would never miss the Barneys wharehouse sale. He would always hold my bag so I could dig for Prada platforms or Michael Kor boots. It was always a madhouse but we would come away so proud of our purchases. Sigh, I do miss that boy...

So yesterday Jaime , Marleigh, Blake and I went to the mall for brunch and shopping. I love the store! But then again I love well designed products and clever visual merchandise, and Barneys satisfies both those credentials.

And how can stairing at a pair of Christian Loubutins or Giuseppe Zanotti over-the-knee boots ever put you in a bad mood? Oh beautiful Barneys, I am glad you have come to Scottsdale...