Gene Pressman’s new memoir, They All Came to Barneys: A Personal History of the World’s Greatest Store (Viking), offers an insider account of the Manhattan retailer’s ascent to cultural prominence and its eventual collapse.
Pressman, whose grandfather founded Barneys as a men’s discounter in 1923, joined the family business in the 1970s and worked his way from the warehouse into merchandising and the C-suite before leaving the company in the late 1990s. In the book he describes both the creative highs and the business missteps that defined the chain’s trajectory. "We had shot the moon, and ended up flying too close to the sun," he writes.
Pressman’s memoir situates Barneys as more than a department store: a stage for fashion, celebrity and New York social life. The book recounts episodes that became part of the store’s lore, from private makeovers and public displays between stars to regular appearances by cultural figures. Andy Warhol, Pressman writes, was a weekly presence; Susan Sontag used the store’s salon; and models and performers, including Madonna and Iman, participated in Barneys charity fashion events.
Barneys’ role as a magnet for celebrities and tastemakers is reflected in recent efforts to keep its brand alive. Last fall, a Barneys pop-up opened in Soho during Fashion Week, featuring 40 brands and alumni of the original store such as former window dresser Simon Doonan. Two television projects about Barneys also are reported to be in development, underscoring the store’s continuing cultural resonance even after its retail operations ceased.
Barneys filed for bankruptcy and closed its flagship stores in 2020 amid mounting financial pressures and a shifting retail landscape. Pressman’s account explores how ambition and experimentation—launching high-profile collaborations, courting the fashion elite and expanding the brand’s cultural footprint—helped build the retailer’s reputation but also contributed to mounting costs and strategic overreach.
The memoir blends recollection, industry detail and anecdote. Pressman writes from the vantage point of someone who saw the company’s growth over decades: the family origins in 1923, the pivot to high fashion, and the small, everyday choices that shaped the store’s public identity. He chronicles his progression through the business and reflects on key moments that he says signaled both success and strain.
Several of the stories Pressman relates underline the store’s outsized place in New York life. The anecdotes include accounts of actors and directors using Barneys as a private backdrop, and celebrities who treated the store as both a stage and a sanctuary. Those tales, alongside the book’s business narrative, sketch how Barneys became synonymous with a particular kind of glamour even as the industry around it evolved.
Retail analysts and cultural commentators have noted that Barneys’ story mirrors larger shifts in fashion retail: rising real estate and operating costs, changing consumer habits, and the challenges of translating a curated in-store experience into sustainable business models in the digital era. Pressman’s memoir adds an individual, often candid voice to that broader narrative, offering names, encounters and executive decisions that shaped the store’s arc.
The book arrives as former employees, designers and journalists continue to mine Barneys’ history for cultural meaning. Pop-up activations, archival exhibits and screen projects aim to reframe the brand as a symbol of a certain New York moment rather than a living retail chain.
They All Came to Barneys is published by Viking and is presented as both a personal memoir and a chronicle of a store that helped define late-20th-century American fashion. The book documents the store’s glamour and its entanglement with celebrity culture, while also tracing how strategic choices and external pressures led to its downfall. As new projects seek to revive Barneys’ image in popular culture, Pressman’s account provides a firsthand record of the people and moments that built the brand—and the missteps that unmade it.