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One day, he got a freelance job designing a window for Tommy Nutter, the only "groovy" tailor on Savile Row. Nutter advised Doonan to let it rip, which he did, with a display featuring taxidermy rats in tuxedos. Among those who noticed was Tommy Perse, the owner of Maxfield in Los Angeles, who convinced Doonan to fly across the Atlantic and come work for him.
One time, he did a restroom scene with a Marcel Duchamp urinal and a bunch of Yohji Yamamoto outfits. Another time, he stuck colostomy bags all over the walls. In 1982, he and the store stirred up a controversy with a window display that caricatured the real-life story of an infant who'd recently been abducted by a coyote.
"I would never do that today," says Doonan. "But I thought it was cheeky then. It was my punk-rock phase."
At any rate, the right people became fans. "His windows violated every rule that stores had," says the filmmaker John Waters, who was an early influence on Doonan and has since become a friend. "And then, because of that, everyone started imitating him. That's how it happens."
In 1985, Diana Vreeland hired Doonan to do the displays for her "Costumes of Royal India" event at the Costume Institute.
Gene Pressman brought Doonan to work at Barneys soon after. "I wanted someone outlandish and provocative, and Simon had put rats in the window," Pressman says. "He had a sense of humor."
Or, as Julie Gilhart, Barneys' fashion director, puts it: "He's just f--king funny."
Religious groups haven't always agreed.
The most famous incident was in 1994, when Tom Sachs did a display for the holiday season called "Hello Kitty Nativity." Though it was intended as a "sardonic commentary on the commercialization of Christmas," the folks at the Catholic League were not amused. After they began to make noise in the tabloids, Barneys received bomb threats, prompting it to pull the display and apologize to offended parties in a full-page ad in The New York Times. "We didn't want to be editors of art," Pressman says. "We didn't want to decide what is right and what isn't right. But they got bent out of shape, so we obliged and took that particular scene out of the window."
One time, he did a restroom scene with a Marcel Duchamp urinal and a bunch of Yohji Yamamoto outfits. Another time, he stuck colostomy bags all over the walls. In 1982, he and the store stirred up a controversy with a window display that caricatured the real-life story of an infant who'd recently been abducted by a coyote.
"I would never do that today," says Doonan. "But I thought it was cheeky then. It was my punk-rock phase."
At any rate, the right people became fans. "His windows violated every rule that stores had," says the filmmaker John Waters, who was an early influence on Doonan and has since become a friend. "And then, because of that, everyone started imitating him. That's how it happens."
In 1985, Diana Vreeland hired Doonan to do the displays for her "Costumes of Royal India" event at the Costume Institute.
Gene Pressman brought Doonan to work at Barneys soon after. "I wanted someone outlandish and provocative, and Simon had put rats in the window," Pressman says. "He had a sense of humor."
Or, as Julie Gilhart, Barneys' fashion director, puts it: "He's just f--king funny."
Religious groups haven't always agreed.
The most famous incident was in 1994, when Tom Sachs did a display for the holiday season called "Hello Kitty Nativity." Though it was intended as a "sardonic commentary on the commercialization of Christmas," the folks at the Catholic League were not amused. After they began to make noise in the tabloids, Barneys received bomb threats, prompting it to pull the display and apologize to offended parties in a full-page ad in The New York Times. "We didn't want to be editors of art," Pressman says. "We didn't want to decide what is right and what isn't right. But they got bent out of shape, so we obliged and took that particular scene out of the window."
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