Coming to America

Fifty years ago, BARNEYS, the iconic New York store that shuttered in 2020, made a bet on an unknown designer from Milan. Men's fashion would never be the same.

- BY GENE PRESSMAN

Giorgio Armani, who died in September, is seen here backstage preparing for a show in the 1970s.

STARTING IN THE LATE 1960S, FRED PRESSMAN-MY DAD AND THE SON of Barney Pressman, who in 1923 opened the store that bore his name—presided over the transformation of Barneys into a higher-end, gentler kind of store. In 1970, he opened the International House, offering Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent from Paris, Bruno Piattelli and Brioni from Rome, and, soon after, the greatest of them all, Giorgio Armani, from Milan.

When Fred maneuvered to steer him into Barneys, he was a startup—not quite a nobody but a long way from the top.

At that time, he barely had a label to speak of; after putting in time behind the scenes of fashion, the 41-year-old designer founded Giorgio Armani S.p.A. out of a two-room office in 1975.

Barneys would invest heavily in Armani, promising tens of thousands of dollars in business each season, and in return would get the exclusive license to manufacture an Armani men’s collection specifically for American businessmen, in addition to carrying Armani’s more high-fashion couture line. For the next ten years, Armani’s and Barneys’ fates would be tightly linked. “Barneys was an important platform for me in every way,” Giorgio said. “Their enthusiasm was unconditional, and they immediately decided to give me visibility. We developed a very close relationship that went beyond work.”