Barneys Of New York Bloody Window Display Yanked Due To Outrage
The infamous Barneys of New York raised some eyebrows recently with their latest window display. It featured contorted mannequins in death scenes complete with blood spattered windows. The displays were featuring the clothing of designers A.C. L. and Helmut Lang. But stunned passersby of the Madison Ave. store did not waste any time in voicing their outrage, and the displays were quickly removed. The edgy idea backfired because people thought it promoted violence against women and that it basically was in bad taste.
A snippet from the NY Daily News reported:
A bloody window display featuring mannequins apparently being attacked unnerved Barneys customers and was swiftly torn down by the store."It's distasteful," said Angie Lobo, 50, of Woodside, Queens, who made a face when she noticed the window while shopping with her daughter.
"I was just thinking, 'What's the point?'"
Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys, said the displays were installed while he was away overseeing advertising shoots and that he had ordered them dismantled.
They were taken down shortly after the Daily News called to inquire about them yesterday afternoon.
"We encourage our display people to be creative. We give them a lot of latitude, but this clearly crossed the line," he said. "It's as if someone saw a bad Hitchcock movie."
I am on the fence about how I feel about this display. Although I appreciate that people are free to express their creativity these days, is a touristy store like Barney's the proper venue for this sort of thing? After all, Barneys is a not an art museum, it is visited by thousands of tourists daily who are eager to shop and has been a fixture in NY since the 1920's. Barneys has also appeared in many big films over the years and was even mentioned on The Family Guy, in the "A Picture Is Worth a 1,000 Bucks" episode when Peter asks Chris if he wants to go to Barneys to "fart in the suits."
So perhaps this artistic display was a bit too over the top for the average shopper, but on the other hand, are people over reacting? I have found over the past years that some people have become too "PC" to the point where it stifles even the most innocent of things. Let's not forget the story back in 1997, of the town of Kingsville in Texas that has their town employees answering the phone by saying "Heaven-O" instead of using the word Hello, because Hello has the word Hell in it. I kid you not. You can't make this crap up.
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