In the Window: Barneys Celebrates Isabel Toledo and Michelle Obama

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This morning, Fashionista alerted us to the news of an on-the-spot window change at Barneys. Simon Doonan was apparently so overcome with joy at the sight of Michelle Obama wearing an outfit by his friend Isabel Toledo that he "tore down the normal Barneys windows on Madison and put up celebratory Isabel Toledo window installations instead." Naturally, we jumped on the subway to take a look.

It's possible that Mannequin has given us artificially inflated expectations for quick-change window dressing, but we found the results a little less elaborate than we'd anticipated. They're cute, though, and they're full of traditional Barneys exuberance, and anyway, Doonan presumably didn't have a reincarnated mummy played by Kim Cattrall to help him (Mannequin: Definitely the best film about window displays Hollywood has ever produced.) As an added bonus, we caught a picture of a Barneys employee setting up the windows to the left of the Mrs. O display, which celebrates another senator from Illinois who went on to be president.
· January 20th 2009: Barneys History Was Made [Fashionista]