Barneys sending wishes for a hippie holiday

Peace, love and ... Barneys? The upscale Manhattan apparel retailer isn't the first brand you'd associate with the acid-tinged late '60s, but perhaps it's you who needs to get with the times, man. A full-page ad in today's New York Times, for instance, has no middle-aged suited executive types whatsoever—just a naked hippie chick in the woods clutching some peace-symbol-laden handbags. The headline: "Peace & love and bohemian gifts." To cap it off, the "o" in "Barneys New York" is also a peace sign. See the full ad here. Has someone spiked the martinis at Barneys HQ with LSD? Actually, this is the official theme of this year's holiday campaign, says Dawn Brown, a Barneys rep. (Last year's equally unexpected theme: the environment.) Brown says the new work, done in-house, is meant to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the peace symbol (which, interestingly enough, combines the semaphoric signals for the letters "n" and "d," as in "nuclear disarmament"). The other impetus, she says, was the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love. In fact, most peg that summer as 1967. "Some say it was 1968," says Brown. "Some even say it was 1969." Either way, it doesn't have much to do with Christmas.

—Posted by Todd Wasserman

December 5, 2008 in Apparel, Barneys, Holidays, Wasserman | Permalink