It's not quite the warm and fuzzy crowd one imagines around most Christmas trees, but Barneys New York is celebrating the holidays with a motley crew that includes Roseanne Roseannadanna, the Church Lady, Father Guido Sarducci and Wayne and Garth.
Two dozen "Saturday Night Live" favorites have been transformed into life-size, papier-mâché ornaments to hang in the flagship store's Madison Avenue windows as it puts on its biggest visual show of the year. There's Will Ferrell as Janet Reno looking very prim and proper, and Mike Myers as Linda ("Coffee Talk") Richman with bright red nails and lips.
Atypical? Yes, but the quirky characters seem like they'd be right at home at a holiday party with Simon Doonan, Barneys' renowned creative director.
"We like to set ourselves apart by picking something that's a little out there," Doonan says. "Our windows can't be elitist, but we can't do 'traditional.' We'd have to make Santa out of ketchup or something if we went that way."
Doonan decided more than a year ago that this year's holiday message would, above all else, be witty. "We had to have fun. It had been such a dismal year," he says.
Holiday windows, he explains, are supposed to generate traffic, bring hoards of shoppers and tourists to the front of the store to "ooh" and "aah," and garner some media buzz. At the same time, the windows need to convey taste, luxury and humor, all of which he considers the core of the Barneys brand.
So, just how will John Belushi's King Bee help sell expensive apparel and accessories?
He doesn't have to, exactly.
"What we've got to have in our windows is something current. We look for things that have a surge of interest," says Doonan. The 35th anniversary of "SNL," coupled with its coverage of last year's election, convinced Doonan that this is the right time to honor these oddities of pop culture.
The research for these windows was far more entertaining than the recent 1960s and green themes, he says, although Doonan still has a soft spot for Rudolph the Recycling Reindeer.
They all became so obsessed with the Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd aliens from Remulak that the Coneheads get their own vignette in the windows. On the record player, you'll find a Con-ie Francis album and the bookshelves filled with "Cone With the Wind" and "Conehead Revisited."
"People will see these Coneheads and break into a big smile," Doonan says.
