In short
Podcast Summary: How Long Gone Episode 852 - Gene Pressman
Episode Overview In this episode, Chris Black and Jason Stewart interview Gene Pressman, author of *They All Came to Barneys*, discussing various topics including the cultural significance of Barneys New York, the evolution of the retail industry, personal anecdotes from the 70s and 80s in New York City, and humorous insights into contemporary pop culture.
Key Themes and Discussions
Introduction and Setting the Scene
- Chris Black opens the show discussing his morning routine in Los Angeles and contrasts it with the vibe in New York.
- The hosts engage in banter about their busy schedules and the nature of their podcast work.
Gene Pressman and His Background
- Pressman discusses living in West Palm Beach, Florida, and the relaxed lifestyle compared to New York.
- He touches on the cultural differences between Palm Beach and Miami, highlighting how each has its unique vibe.
The Legacy of Barneys New York
- Pressman shares his insights on Barneys, referring to it as "the world's greatest store."
- Talks about the retail landscape in the 70s, particularly focusing on how Barneys carved a niche by bringing European brands to American consumers when American designers were reluctant to collaborate.
Marketing and Retail Evolution
- Discusses the importance of humor in marketing and how Barneys differentiated itself through clever advertising.
- Pressman reminisces about the advertising strategies of the past, including the innovative and sometimes outrageous campaigns that helped define the Barneys brand.
Personal Anecdotes and Experiences
- Gene shares his experiences as a boxing enthusiast and describes the boxing ring he had in his office in the early days of Barneys.
- Insights into his interactions with celebrities and fashion icons frequenting Barneys during its heyday.
Cultural Reflections
- The conversation shifts to the cultural dynamics of New York in the 70s vs. the 80s, noting the influx of wealth and how it changed social scenes and businesses.
- Pressman reflects on the creative energy of the 60s and 70s, suggesting that the subsequent decades saw a decline in genuine creativity due to commercialization.
A Modern Perspective
- The hosts and Pressman discuss the contemporary retail environment, exploring how trends have shifted towards digital and online sales.
- Insights on how Barneys adapted over the years and the impact of the 90s recession on retail.
Key Takeaways
- Cultural Significance of Barneys: Barneys was more than just a retail store; it represented a cultural hub that shaped fashion trends and social interactions.
- The Role of Humor in Marketing: Humor is a powerful tool in advertising, and Barneys utilized it effectively to engage customers.
- Shift in Retail Landscape: The transition from physical retail to online shopping has significantly changed consumer behavior and the retail industry.
- Personal Reflections: Pressman's anecdotes provide a personal touch, illustrating the experiences of working in a dynamic and evolving industry.
Conclusion The episode offers a rich tapestry of insights into the world of fashion, retail marketing, and personal experiences from Gene Pressman's extensive career, painting a vivid picture of Barneys New York and its impact on culture and commerce.
For listeners interested in fashion history and the evolution of retail, this episode provides a compelling narrative filled with humor and nostalgia.
Links
- [Gene Pressman's Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/genepressman)
- [How Long Gone Official Website](https://howlonggone.com)
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:17Chris Black:How long gone? It's Chris Black. It is just before 9 a.m. here in Los Angeles. The sun is going to creep out soon. Them jeans was really good.
0:26Jason Stewart:Sun creeping over here. Are you in a closet in Pasadena again? Pause.
0:31Chris Black:No, I'm in a hotel room in West Hollywood. It's fine. I'm out of the closet finally.
0:37Jason Stewart:Okay, welcome. Welcome. How are you feeling? Yeah, I'm feeling good. I actually had a terrible sleep score yesterday. It was tough. I'm all fucked up. Luckily, I'm going to get on a flight that lands in New York at midnight tonight, and then I'll just go to the 9 Orchie and just sleep it up. Straight to bed. Hopefully.
0:59Chris Black:No, you'll be fine. No, I've been getting up at 5 to work out with Hunter at 6, which leaves me a lot of day, except I've been... Today I don't have to go to Pasadena, so today I'm out here. I'm freewheeling in WeHo.
1:14Jason Stewart:When you say it leaves you a lot of day, I thought you were a busy guy. I got a lot of emails that you got to get back to, Chris,
1:19Chris Black:if you want me to send them over again. No, I just don't want any of those people to come on our show. But the –
1:28Okay.
1:28Jason Stewart:Well, you have to tell me that, though.
1:30Chris Black:I don't have to – See, this is the difference between you and I. If somebody emails me 20 times and I'm not interested, I'm not responding. It's a waste of time. You've got to get the point.
1:38Jason Stewart:What if you already said you're interested, though?
1:42Chris Black:No, I probably was just lying to get you off my back. But I can look into it. Okay. Well, that's also bad. The two emails that were quote-unquote urgent from you have been responded to.
1:52Jason Stewart:It's not really an urgency. It's more of a just, you know, it's a yes or a no.
1:58Chris Black:I get too many emails to respond to people trying to come on the show if they're not of interest. But I'm saying my point is of all this is that when you are done with the gym at 7 a.m., it just feels like you've done a lot. It's nice to have it out of the way is what I'm trying to say.
2:15Jason Stewart:Every time lunch comes around, it feels like dinner, right?
2:18Chris Black:You feel you've lived two days. You know what I mean? Not to go Mark Wahlberg mode, but you know what I mean? It's like when you're done at seven, there's no traffic out there. It's just such a nicer time of day to be doing that sort of thing in Los Angeles particularly. Because in New York, you do it that early. You're walking down the streets. It's kind of creepy. If you're walking around downtown before six, it just feels eerie. because there's no one on the street. Here, there's never anyone on the street. You know what I mean? You're in your car. It's fine. It feels normal. But walking around when it's dark at 530 just feels funny.
2:55Jason Stewart:So LA does early morning better than New York. Oh, yeah. I always say that because no one here has a job. So they're not. And since you are not really a breakfast eater anyway, it doesn't matter if the bacon, egg, and cheese is available at 515 AM or the coffee is available that early.
3:14Chris Black:well I have to I do have to bring I mean that's why I stock my own chameleon in every hotel room I can because I get up usually get up too early for coffee even in Austin that hotel had a great coffee program 7 a.m that's that's as good as it's gonna get but it's a little late depending on what time you re-rise heaven's a little tough I agree with that it's a little like I think all I mean Starbucks is closing you know 14 locations daily yeah um but I I believe they do open at six which is you know that's that's that is the standard for a reason i gotta get my protein
3:46Jason Stewart:foam in before otherwise what's the point of going to the gym i saw i saw dan posted his his
3:54Chris Black:protein foam review and he's like it tastes good he's like it's sugar and air how could it not but what is the what is the protein i i only have heard about this a little bit i mean i obviously it's self-explanatory but is that is this a sign of of real peak protein i i mean i think what i've
4:10Jason Stewart:what i've noticed is that things that already have protein in them yeah they're either being rebranded as like this is the protein thing like cottage cheese has just always had a bunch of protein and now it's like oh i see have some more of your protein cheese i guess like it's like people used to eat cottage cheese because it was low calorie and it tasted you know some people liked it and then it would fill you up and now people just buy these tubs of cottage cheese rip the lid off like a wild dingo and just you know dry scoop their creatine powder into it and you know rub it on their body and underarms or something like that they're not really enjoying it the way they need to be it's like it's like uh just eating goo on a jog you know yeah that's i
4:55Chris Black:mean i i see what you mean like they these these long time protein providers see the uh uptick in the marketplace and the and the kind of copy that goes along with it and they've done a quick rebrand a pivot if you will right to sort of get which is smart yeah definitely like when everything
5:12Jason Stewart:was like oh this this uh corn on the cob is gluten-free or like you know like oh this apple juice is vegan it'll say it on the label and you're like yeah no fucking shit no fucking shit this apple juice is vegan unless you count the bugs that had to die you know i don't i then those
5:29Chris Black:lives can't be we can't resuscitate those dead bugs something to think about no we can't but but
5:33Jason Stewart:I think also lastly with certain ingredients where they're like what if you know I'm sure the the Starbucks banana foam already had you know like four grams of protein in it just naturally stock and then certain foods you can just add the powdered protein or the powdered sure whatever to it and it doesn't really and they just they they just keep adding the powder until it starts tasting too goofy and then they pull it back and then we got to 15 grams that's not bad you know what i mean it's a pretty because every there's there's a line yeah of course of course i mean
6:06Chris Black:you don't want anything to taste like protein if that makes sense if it's not meat basically you know what i mean you don't want anything that's that's that's um not real to taste like of protein i like that but you know what i mean like i feel like it can i feel like we've all had that in some sort of smoothie probably before where it feels like something's wrong here it's a little chalky and it's usually due to the the powder the protein unless i'm drinking down
6:30Jason Stewart:a nice cowboy colostrum, which I've been whisking in. It's funny. Have they paid us yet?
6:35Chris Black:Because you're really shilling for them, and I don't know if they've paid us yet.
6:39Jason Stewart:They have not paid us yet, but what I liked about them, I mean, obviously, it's just a funny thing. I'm enjoying my colostrum today, but because it has a cowboyish, cowgirlish feel to it, you know when all these beverage products come with the little electric whisk thing to whisk up your shit? They got one that's kind of like the F-350. You know when you get the tattoo guns now where it's like a big fat boy?
7:07Chris Black:They've done a man-sized version.
7:10Jason Stewart:They got more horses under the hood to whip up that pow-pow.
7:13Chris Black:Damn, that's really funny, actually. That's smart and on brand, even though I still don't. It's American-made, brother. I don't know what it does, but it sounds like it's for people who go to Jackson Hole or live in Austin, and that's a good market for that kind of product, I feel like.
7:28Jason Stewart:yeah colostrum is so important for my daily routine uh okay let's see here do you want to
7:35Chris Black:talk about theo vaughn yeah i was who's i talking about this today going through it yeah i mean it's
7:42Jason Stewart:it's it's it's not good so like i remember like maybe like a week ago something like that with with today's timeline it could be four months it could be four hours i don't know but sure sure sure I think the literal White House or the U.S. government posted a video on social media. Oh, yes, yes, yes. And they used footage of Theo Vaughn against his, without his approval, basically saying like Theo Vaughn is, you know, he also wants to round up the brown people and get them out of the country. and I think that to me in my opinion that was like the tipping point where he's like maybe I done gone too far here and I need to you know take a long look in the mirror at what's going on and then you know maybe he's back to using drugs and you know well I mean they're having he's having
8:32Chris Black:a Lola young mental health moment the rumor is that he relapsed and then bombed so bad he had to apologize and then said he was going to kill himself so it's pretty it's pretty well that's
8:44Jason Stewart:not that's not the rumor that's like what has been documented with video well the relapse with
8:49Chris Black:no one i mean there's no document the relapse yeah him snorting coke but you know as a as a
8:54Jason Stewart:former addict and current gelato addict we all have a tipping point that makes us use again you
9:01Chris Black:know what i mean the fact that i want to just pat myself on the back for for resisting talk your shit boy for resisting a single bite of that pie at quarter sheets that ryan o 'connell ordered because that shit looked, I was staring at it lustfully. Like my mouth was sweating looking at that pie. That was like being in the green room and the Coke coming out. You know what I'm saying? That was too, it was too powerful and then you got a slice to go. He got a slice to go. Kord got the princess cake. He was like, it's delicious. You guys are all, you don't even like dessert and you're fucking taking it down.
Read the full transcript
9:34Jason Stewart:I got a slice to go.
9:36Chris Black:I was.
9:39Jason Stewart:Yeah, I mean, and that slice, I took a couple bites at home. Of course, we have to eat our sweets in the morning to allow our body to fully process it and not sit on that. It would really affect my sleep score if I eat all that chocolate pudding before bed. Yeah, it's delicious. Shout out to Quarter Sheets. I would say it's known as a pizza joint as well as a desserts joint. But man, those salads and the appetizers are very well chef crafted. I've been eating a lot of melon this summer.
10:07Chris Black:Dude, same, bro.
10:08Jason Stewart:Hold for applause. but that melon, there's some pollen on it and it's swimming in the sauce. That was delicious. That was delicious. Cut to the right size. That was delicious. Mamma mia.
10:18Chris Black:I didn't really know what I was getting into, but I actually, when forced to make a choice between some sort of tomato dish and a savory melon dish, I didn't know myself that well, but I instantly reached for the savory melon.
10:35Jason Stewart:You had some shit that you had never had before and it started changing the way you look at life.
10:40Chris Black:It kind of changed my shit up. Yeah, it changed my shit up. And also, last night at the Failing Horses, those salads were amazing. Those were also very good salads, like A plus, A plus salads. So I've been eating, I had goop lunch, I had goop kitchen two days in a row, great salads. I went to Echo Park, the worst neighborhood in America, and had some delicious, I hadn't been to Echo Park in a long time. What a fucking dump, man. I didn't realize it was, like it used to be so charming and it felt like you were really somewhere different and now it feels a little junky not not junky like needles junky like like bad stuff everywhere does that make sense like like weird weird bad stores and restaurants that shouldn't be open and then of course the iconic glasses and quarter sheets but i i just don't yeah i mean every neighborhood
11:30Jason Stewart:has its diamonds in the rough and there there are there are multiple ones in echo park but But yeah, I mean, I agree. It's like it's one of those places where if once you turn like 23, you have sort of outgrown it. You have aged yourself out of that community. And it used to be you could go live up in the hills and be, you know, in your 40s and start a family and have a dog named Cooper or Max. And everything is all good. You take the kids to roller hockey practice. And now, like you said, it's just kind of. It's just. I think it's gone through. like it was it was like the cool artist neighborhood it was cheap to live there cool people went there and then time passed it got bought up commercialized and then enough time has passed again and that has turned into a third thing that is quite bad but we have a guest here today and it's
12:20Chris Black:time to chat with them yeah our guest today is a uh gene pressman he's got a new book out um they all came they all came to barney's a personal history of the world's greatest store the world's greatest store i mean i you know we'll talk about that is target better was barney's better it's who's to say really who's to say but we're gonna get into we're gonna get into we'll make some final decisions today on how long gone that's for sure this episode of how long gone is brought to you by superpower superpower jason yeah recently i went to see the old doctor you know and i i left the medical facility in beverly hills and uh i just i felt like i didn't get any good info you It was sort of like, you're fine.
13:01Chris Black:Drink more water.
13:02Jason Stewart:I'm going to try this and let me know in three months. And I said, that doesn't seem very efficient, Doc.
13:07Chris Black:Am I even going to be alive in three months? Because I need real data. I want a game plan. I don't need a pat on the back. I get that all the time in my personal life. But Superpower, on the other hand, is giving you the shit you need, bro. Superpower sends a licensed professional to your house, or you can visit a nearby lab if you're feeling crazy. It's a simple blood draw with over 100 biomarkers, which is way more than what you usually get, and it unlocks a real understanding of your body as you head into the Q2 of this year. The app includes detailed information on your heart, liver, thyroid, hormones, metabolism, vitamin and mineral levels, and even environmental toxins.
13:41Chris Black:Uh-oh. So from disease prevention to treating that annoying brain fog or simply optimizing your gym game, let's fucking go. Superpower is the most comprehensive and advanced system on the market.
13:51Jason Stewart:Yeah. Also, if you know yourself, you know your body, and you just simply want to have one of those cool, like what's my biological age and you can kind of compare yours with other people and kind of rub it into your friends and family that even though you may be older than them you will actually outlive them because of your biological age because you've been using your nutritional guide and your behavioral adjustments that our friends at superpower have told you to do do this don't do that eat that don't eat that and next thing you know your bio age you're entering brian johnson territory even though you're what 60 70 i'm 26
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14:43Chris Black:Hell no.
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15:17Chris Black:After the age of 30, which unfortunately we are, even responsibly drinking a little booze will make you feel less than 100 % the next day. And look, there are obviously more negative effects from alcohol than just dehydration. Otherwise, how could alcohol be hard on your brain and liver? It has a depressant effect on specific receptors in your brain and it's toxic to your liver. That's bad, Jason. What can we do? What do you think? Is there a fix for this? You think, is there a way to sort of hack this?
15:45Jason Stewart:That is bad, Chris. There is a good one. You know, I like to drink. I like to put them down a little bit. Certain alcohols give me certain feelings and headaches and bad feelings. You know, when I drink wine, I'll get a little, you know, I won't be feeling so good the next day compared to something else. And that's where I like to grab a little Cheers. They appeared over on Shark Tank. Let's go. And now Cheers is sold in over 30 ,000 stores, Walgreens, CBS, 7-Eleven, all that stuff. Served over 50 million doses. So that's why we reach for Cheers, Chris. You're going to feel at least 50 % better the next day or your money back.
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18:23Jason Stewart:You're down in Florida, right?
18:24Chris Black:Yeah. Oh, yeah. They got strong Wi-Fi down there for sure. That's a different... I didn't realize you were in Florida. American Wi-Fi. What part of Florida?
18:31Gene Pressman:West Palm.
18:32Chris Black:Okay. Nice. Very nice. So you retired there?
18:37Gene Pressman:I guess to a point. If you have a six-year-old, I'm not sure you're retired.
18:41Chris Black:Hold on, bro. You got a six-year-old?
18:43Jason Stewart:Yeah. We're talking to a lifelong stick man, Chris. This is stuff that happens.
18:47Chris Black:I know, but it happens. But I mean, I guess, let me ask. I'm not going to ask your age, of course, but what is the gap in age between you and the mother of the six-year-old?
18:59Gene Pressman:20 plus. Okay, nice.
19:01Chris Black:So you didn't have much of a choice then, it feels like. Maybe this was like, if you want to keep me on your arm, you got to give me something that I want.
19:08Gene Pressman:Yeah, I mean, we've been together 28 years. Okay, okay. So it's not like it's a new thing. But yeah, you know, women, they get into the clock thing. You know what I mean? The clock's ticking. So we were together for 10 years before we decided to get married. I didn't want to get married again.
19:28Chris Black:How many times have you been married? Just once? Twice is enough. So you're saying once and then now currently or two and then now currently?
19:36Gene Pressman:No, once and now currently. Okay, got you.
19:39Chris Black:Got you, got you. Okay, so two's enough. Did you lose your ass in the first one, or was it okay?
19:45Gene Pressman:Everything's stare. You know, they have laws, you know, so you have to.
19:51Chris Black:They have laws as a really cool response to that. Well, there are laws. I didn't really have much say in some of that stuff, but, you know. Laws can be pesky.
19:59Jason Stewart:Okay, Gene, now that you're down in West Palm, Florida, have you influenced the local scene? do you see people wearing drees and and yoji and all these brands from back in the day that you have sort of pioneered or is it still kind of tommy bahama over there well considering i'm wearing a white tee which i always wear um same i i uh it's not about designer stuff i don't see a lot of
20:28Gene Pressman:people wearing designer stuff today to be honest with the prices are so stupid that it's ridiculous it's just you know people that don't try hard versus the people that try too hard you know what i mean and that's not exclusive to florida that's everywhere so yeah when it's very sunny out it definitely affects your brain somewhat so you know you go down you go down a different path
20:53Chris Black:so to speak some of your you're saying some of your neighbors are a little fried from too much
20:58Gene Pressman:sun time mentally and physically no i'm not saying that um we'll call it pickled well i'm just saying that it's easier down here for sure you know i call it the but i call i call it the bubble yeah yeah yeah you're kind of living in the tropics and you know it's um it's it's sort of like a mini shangri-la in a sense so it doesn't suck yeah no no no you can you can pull out of
21:21Jason Stewart:a bentley wearing white t-shirt and some shorts and some flip-flops and everything is all good whereas in manhattan the the street is the runway and you have to have a you know a considered look even if you go to the laundromat you know i got my guy over here
21:36Gene Pressman:we got your kid right here huh there's fred uh freddy say hi
21:43Jason Stewart:hi fred see you later buddy oh too cute yeah he's a good kid so you named you named him after the barney's restaurant is that right no i named after my father i'm just kidding i'm just kidding
21:56Gene Pressman:that was listen i had a fight with them to name that restaurant after my father what did that what did what did they want to go with well they were uh at the time the um the restructuring guys so uh they i don't know what they wanted to go with but um i know what i wanted to go with and uh obviously they went with that so we can we can go into that later if you like sure um but no it's um being down here uh there are a lot of bohemians down here and artists and a lot of cool people and people that i know from back in uh the apple and um you know then then florida is also another
22:42Chris Black:part of the world too you know i always say florida is its own planet same way i think texas is its own planet there's a certain vibe that you're not getting other places yeah i florida
22:52Gene Pressman:is definitely on its own planet i think texas now going to its own universe they've blasted off
22:57Chris Black:they're they've taken it further yeah yeah they have well what's the difference i've always i've never understood totally the difference i mean obviously west palm and then palm beach is it a vibe difference obviously it's a actual location difference but like what are the defining factors
23:15Gene Pressman:you know of the two well west palm is more low-key and more neighborhood okay and and families and palm beach is you know one fortress after another so uh it's a completely different vibe listen the island physically of palm beach is very beautiful you know and you can the way they they laid it out You can take your bike over there and they have wonderful little trails. They're on the intercoastal that you can go up and down on. But living there is a whole different scene.
23:49Jason Stewart:Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, I think a lot of people who are listening are familiar with Palm Beach, Florida, because that's where Mar-a-Lago is. And then West Palm Beach, Florida is just over the bridge. And you're describing it as a bohemian cultural zone. and I'd like to know how that happens, you know, or, you know, they're so close to each other.
24:11Gene Pressman:Well, you know, Palm Beach was always set up that way from way back when Flagler's, you know, with the railroads. I mean, it's basically the same people that built Southampton in New York built Palm Beach. So they would have their, you know, winter homes. So, and that hasn't changed over many, many years. it's completely different than Miami, which you know has exploded. I could never live in Miami.
24:41Chris Black:Yeah, there's probably a little less, I feel like there's less Latin flair in Palm Beach maybe than Miami.
24:46Gene Pressman:Well, yeah, but it's not so much, Miami is a sort of a mixture of many cultures in a sense, which is a good thing, but it's just so overcrowded and overbuilt. if you're 20 something or early 30s and you still want to party i guess it's a good place yeah if you're an old guy like me who's already checked out of that place um you know you want something that's a little bit more peaceful of course of course well i guess speaking of
25:17Jason Stewart:tropical coastal living let's move it to the west coast orange county where i'm from and and my wife who also is from Orange County, and she worked at the Barneys Co-op at South Coast Plaza, Chris's favorite mall in the world. And I was reading the book, and you're talking about going into that mall, and I totally forgot that the word Barney is a word that you would call somebody who's like a kook or like a dorky guy who can't surf. And then you take your big, beautiful new amazing store and stick it in the epicenter of that culture you know were there conversations about what are we going to do are we going to change did you almost change the name to something else or was it just no i did it well in fact i when i was writing the book i found that out i didn't know that prior okay okay i actually learned a lot when i was writing the book which was kind of fun you're like oh no shit i forgot about that thing that happened to me in my life
26:18Gene Pressman:Yeah, including about myself. But, you know, that's a very beautiful part of the world. Thank you. And, you know, in those days, I think that those people were more sort of country club and very conservative and happy with their own little lives and didn't really understand fashion too much. which I guess you'd call it sort of Ralph Lauren country if you wanted to. So it was a challenge bringing those kind of things in, but it was a beautiful place and people were wealthy and were exposed to very high quality kind of things. So it was a teaching lesson, but we got there and we also opened a great restaurant there, which I think did very well.
27:12Jason Stewart:Do you remember what that restaurant was called?
27:14Gene Pressman:Give me a second.
27:15Jason Stewart:Because I was asking my wife, and I think she worked there after. It was past her prom.
27:20Gene Pressman:Yes. It was next to the store, adjacent to the store, but it was at South Coast Plaza. It was an Italian restaurant, and it was quite good, and it was always packed. That was a nice mall, by the way. A very nice mall.
27:35Jason Stewart:Yeah, very nice. It's where a boy became a man, me. I had a lot of firsts there.
27:40Gene Pressman:Yeah, I'm sure. Do you remember the name of the owners?
27:44Jason Stewart:Of South Coast Plaza?
27:45Gene Pressman:Yeah.
27:46Jason Stewart:Simon? The Segerstrom family.
27:50Gene Pressman:The Segerstrom family. That's right. They were very nice. Yeah. And no, believe it or not, there are a lot of malls that are independent outside the grasp of Simon. Primarily, that's the malls that we'd go to, against my better judgment, because I wasn't a mall guy. And I really didn't feel that Barney's was meant to be in a mall, you know?
28:13Jason Stewart:Yeah. Are you still anti-mall?
28:18Gene Pressman:No. I mean, I go shopping very rarely. So if I have to go to the mall, actually the mall serves a purpose now because it has more things in it. So I can get it all done at once.
28:32Jason Stewart:Okay. So you're a white tee guy. But what about the pants? What about the shoes? Do we have some more legacy pieces going on on your day-to-day wardrobe?
28:44Gene Pressman:Generally, I'm a jean guy, you know, tight knee-wise. How tight are we talking? Not as tight as they used to be. Sure, sure, sure.
28:56Chris Black:You're saying fit it. You're saying fit it.
28:58Jason Stewart:We're not talking about the Led Zeppelin nut-huggers that you were wearing back in the day. Yes. But they're tight for, okay, I got it.
29:05Gene Pressman:Yeah, but they're tapered. I still weigh the same as I always weighed. I didn't gain a pound really. I'm in low 150s. Damn, okay. Must be nice, Gene. What's the secret there?
29:17Jason Stewart:He said low 150s. Come check me.
29:19Gene Pressman:I work out every day religiously. I'm on an hour on that elliptical full bore.
29:25Jason Stewart:Really?
29:26Chris Black:Yeah. So you're saying balls to the wall on the elliptical for an hour. For an hour. Okay.
29:31Jason Stewart:It's like
29:32Gene Pressman:a dream for the joints. It is because I can't run anymore. I used to run marathons, but I might have no knees.
29:38Chris Black:That's funny you say that. You have a runner look about you, which I think that if you do it long enough, you kind of develop that and it sticks with you.
29:46Gene Pressman:Yeah, it does. And also, I love eating, but I kind of watch what I eat. It's not a diet or anything, but I only eat when I'm hungry. So I eat in the morning, early, like seven o 'clock, and then I eat dinner. I don't ever eat lunch because I'm not hungry.
30:05Jason Stewart:and you don't seem like a snacker
30:06Gene Pressman:no I'm not lots of sweets lots of chocolate at night
30:11Chris Black:like bad boy shit or like a couple squares of artisanal dark chocolate
30:16Gene Pressman:only dark chocolate I hate milk chocolate and dark chocolate with salt it's really cool
30:24Chris Black:I agree I fucking agree man you're absolutely right it's cool
30:29Jason Stewart:let's talk about working out because I know that's a big interest of Chris's and I think we can all bond on this, but even when you had the office in New York, 70s, 80s, you built your own gym in the office. There were gyms at other locations of Barney's, some for public, some for employees only. When did you get the bug?
30:55Gene Pressman:No, actually, there was only one gym at Barney's. It was my gym, but I let people use it. Okay. That's nice.
31:01Chris Black:It's like when the CEO lets you use his bathroom. You know, it's a nice treat.
31:06Gene Pressman:Yeah, I didn't have my own bathroom.
31:08Chris Black:You had different priorities. I got it.
31:10Jason Stewart:I had my own boxing ring. I didn't have my own shitter, though. Yeah.
31:13Gene Pressman:I actually did have a gym and a bathroom and a gym. But no, I boxed for a long time, for almost 20 years. So we had a little ring in there. And we do a lot of running. I don't know if you guys have boxed, but it's got to be the best exercise on the planet.
31:35Jason Stewart:Great cardio, full body. Yeah.
31:37Gene Pressman:And the road work to do it is really insane. We're running every morning at like six, doing about seven or eight miles, and then going back and lifting weights, and then hitting the heavy bag for like almost 40 minutes. That's brutal. Brutal. That's absolutely brutal. Yeah. And so, you know, I did not karate, but the Muay Thai thing. Okay, a little Muay Thai. And my instructor got a little over-anxious and started hurting me. And I said, that's enough. And I fired him, and I didn't do that anymore. When you start whacking with elbows. Were you talking shit to him, though?
32:25Chris Black:or you think this is all in his own mind?
32:28Jason Stewart:I think that's part of the Muay Thai. Normally, it's like I'm paying you to get hit, not the other way around, buddy. But I think with the Muay Thai, you want to get a little pain going.
32:38Gene Pressman:Well, what happened was I wore shin guards because it really, I don't know, if you ever got kicked in the shin or kicked someone in the shin and they're doing all the time, you have to build up callus in your bone. It's like insane.
32:53Jason Stewart:you got to be pretty nutty to do that shit and so yeah i i was a pretty good boxer and i was fast
33:01Gene Pressman:and muay thai guys like use their legs like 90 of the time ah a lot more power there so you're starting to see what happened here right so we're screwing around and i i think i whacked him once in the head and he just went nuts and he jumped up in the air and he came down with his elbow right on my head full force and i said dude that's it you're fired get the fuck out of here so you know the that that was the end of my muay thai career i didn't hire you to give me a head injury i think
33:35Jason Stewart:that's a fair i think it's a fair reason we had a safe word and you crossed the line yeah yeah well
33:40Chris Black:you know in fairness i guess i deserved it but uh oh i'm gonna i'm gonna agree that you deserved it but that's still his job is to know restraint that's his that's part of the job it's true
33:49Gene Pressman:I mean, but I thought boxing was so much fun because I had a lot of stress and I just wanted to get it out and this is the way to do it. And it was great.
34:03Jason Stewart:Well, how do you balance the going out to the club five nights a week and doing, I don't know what substances you're enjoying, but then waking up and hitting the heavy bag at 7 a.m.?
34:16Chris Black:That's what real men do, Jason. They sweat it out the next day.
34:19Gene Pressman:okay well you know i think i think that burning at the both ends of the candle wasn't a a lifetime aspiration if you know what i mean sure sure sure sure that that's a there's a limited window on that is what you're saying right it's a it's a young person's sport that's right so i did that in my 20s uh new york you know in the 70s was absolutely insane and um I went to school with Rebell and Schrager who started Studio 54. They were my fraternity brothers. So I guess...
34:57Jason Stewart:That's a plug right there.
34:58Gene Pressman:Yeah, that started in 77. And I was unabashed in living there like six days a week for like three years.
35:07Jason Stewart:Yeah, I mean, telling a girl I can get you into Studio 54 if you want to go over tonight after dinner. You know, good as gold. Well, I didn't do that.
35:16Gene Pressman:In fact, I rarely ever went there with somebody from the opposite sex. I went with my buddies.
35:25Jason Stewart:You rarely brought sand to the beach is what you're saying. Yeah. I was going to say, did you leave with your buddies, though, is the real question.
35:33Gene Pressman:No. Well, sometimes.
35:39Of course.
35:41Chris Black:Nobody's batting 100. Yeah.
35:42Gene Pressman:Well, it wasn't that. They also came with other people of the opposite sex.
35:53Jason Stewart:There can be complications. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No.
35:58Gene Pressman:But anyway. But yeah. Moving forward. Anyway, the 70s were pretty wild, and that's when I was really going at it and also working. And then I just said I had enough of this shit. and uh in early 80s uh in 79 i met this girl and fell in love with her and uh the club scene it was kind of coincidental that studio also ended in 79 yeah and um in 82 i got married and i moved to uh larchmont hung out there went to new york every day to work but really didn't party and then had kids and got very serious about building the company.
36:40Chris Black:Was the shift like culturally from the seventies to the eighties in New York pretty severe? Like, did you feel a difference in those decades?
36:47Gene Pressman:Well, the biggest shift was that people started making a lot of money.
36:51Chris Black:Okay.
36:51Gene Pressman:Everything that was talked about in terms of wall street and greed and all of that stuff was true. And obviously Barney's benefited a great deal from those customers. They were buying, as I said in the book, arms full of Armani's. We brought Armani in 76. So after that, New York exploded, and they were just spending money like no tomorrow. The restaurants were overpacked. All these young brokers, they were buying$1 ,000 bottles of wine, and I guess the drugs were flowing. And it was an insane time. The 70s was more artistic and more creative and more down and dirty. And New York was pretty much bankrupt and unsafe.
37:42Gene Pressman:And depending on what street you went down, you didn't know whether you were going to get mug raped or go into a cool club.
37:48Chris Black:Sure.
37:49Gene Pressman:And also, downtown didn't really exist then. I mean, believe it or not, Soho just started to come up. And the West Stilwich was more bohemian in those days. And the East Stilwich, as I said in the book, was, you know, a bunch of artists that would pay$2.50 a month rent and all the rats they could chase. So and Chelsea didn't exist at all. The only thing that was there was Barneys. So Barneys was kind of like the downtown anchor, you know. And then everything just exploded because downtown was really the only place that young people could afford to live. So in those days, you really had cool clubs and little cool restaurants.
38:36Gene Pressman:And, you know, it was very European in a sense and a lot of fun to hang out. And you also had the great rock clubs.
38:43Jason Stewart:Yeah.
38:44Gene Pressman:You know, you had Phil Maurice.
38:46Jason Stewart:CBGBs.
38:46Gene Pressman:Well, that was, yeah, that was late 70s. Yes. But, um, but, but you had a lot of the rock and roll clubs and were a lot of, and you also have a lot of where the artists went, were whole and that whole group and everything was near the store. So I would do this sort of pilgrimage every day where I'd walk. barney's was on 17th street 7th i'd walk down 17th street going east past the bottom line and pass all the other clubs and then i would pass um philmore east and in those days the the backstage door was always open and wherever act was playing that night would be playing practicing during the day and i'd go by and i i would hear this guy playing the flute and he blew my mind i think it was about 72 or something he blew or maybe even earlier uh he blew my mind and i never heard of this guy and i snuck in and i i said i gotta buy a ticket and i went that night it was jethro tall and um of course i became a jethro tall fan but everything was a lot looser and easier you know in a sense and way more free but but you're but you're saying the 80s once the
39:58Chris Black:money came in things changed like that's what that's what really made the difference yeah i
40:02Gene Pressman:think that everything that was a discovery in the 70s just exploded in the 80s and then uh it wasn't so much of a discovery anymore uh and then you know with each decade it just got worse in my view
40:19Chris Black:that's i think that's probably fair i mean i wasn't there for those two but you know at least
40:24Gene Pressman:in my lifetime that you're that that's right you know i i don't talk about it a lot but somebody should write a book about the 60s because that was really the the greatest hidden gem that's where everything started and the center of the universe was london and i mean london was the coolest place on the planet and you know you had all the english rock stars and the cool rock clubs and the fashion was great. You know, the girls in the little leather hot pants and the short haircuts they had or the long haircuts. I'm sure you guys saw a lot of this. You know, there was great art scene. It was the great, from 67 to 73, was the greatest period ever in filmmaking.
41:11Gene Pressman:It was just a very cool place. Anything went. and um it was very sort of the kids versus the establishment you know and it was the same way in this country too then in the 60s uh it wasn't the two political parties were really the older generation and the younger generation it wasn't about red or blue you know at odds um yeah yeah and there was a lot of anger by the kids and because of the anger which is something missing right now maybe it's starting to come back i don't know but no though they're angry
41:44Chris Black:they're angry about having to wait in line for their matcha but otherwise i think it's well you know the problem is that apathy doesn't bring great creativity you know and that's where the
41:55Gene Pressman:60s really flourished and the 70s is because there was a lot of anger and so you had all these pissed off kids and they were just making great stuff you know whether it be music or film or art or fashion and that went into the 70s and then the 80s also it continued because there's a lot of money so it just got bigger do you know what i mean i'm not sure it was better but it definitely got bigger but it it wasn't it it didn't diminish it didn't diminish until the 90s once it got into the 90s the first half of the 90s was still good but then things started to slip you know the internet came on and then uh i don't have to tell you guys you know as soon as the flip phones came first you had those big monster phones then you had the flip phones and then you had what you have now and so you know that changed everything i'm not saying anything you guys don't know or anybody doesn't know but it really it hurt it hurt creativity it made people lazier uh stupider less social less hungry but was it good was it good for business in some ways though well the 80s were great for business then the 90s if you recall the early 90s we had a terrible recession because always yeah always i mean history does repeat the sell always at a certain point maybe it's a 10-year cycle but after like this insane spending of money and you know we live in a consumer society so after there was insane spending of money it just backfired and then you know the shit hit the fan and nobody was spending money and it got ugly and that was the early 90s so the people that had money and that's what's sort of unfair if you will for the most of the people living in this country the people that had money could do whatever they wanted and everybody else got hurt you know and so uh until bill clinton came around we won't get into politics but i hope that no we won't no we won't this country doesn't
44:05Jason Stewart:go through that again you know we're gonna see okay well i wanted to talk to you about advertising i know that you know barney's had a lot of legendary advertising over the years even back you know in the very early days and radio ads and things like that but at a certain point it got to the level where other companies were hiring you guys to do their advertising yeah and i wanted to see if you still kind of consider yourself to be a little bit of an ad man yeah i'm not big on
44:37Gene Pressman:uh sayings or being pigeonholed into you know traces but okay um i'm a visual guy and um i I think I'm a pretty good storyteller. So that's what advertising is, obviously. My grandfather was a brilliant marketer. The company was totally different back in the 20s. He came from nothing. He was a poor boy on the Lower East Side. And he had this small hole in the wall called Barney's. And in those days, downtown, nobody went downtown. uh as i said in the book if they went down below 47th street they were afraid they got a nosebleed so um he had to get people down there and um in those days buying airtime didn't cost a lot of money so he flubbed the market with rate you know it was all about radio and he flood the market to the point where he was annoying the hell out of everybody and he didn't care and you heard barney's on the radio 24 hours a day every day you know when you get in a taxi cab all you had to say is i'm going to barney's you never had to say the address and they knew it you know and he he was revolutionary and in so many ways um during the linbergh trials uh barney's sponsored the linbergh trials on radio and then in 1949 uh he was the first retailer to go on television and advertise I didn't know any of this stuff I knew about the old ads but I didn't know any of this stuff I was asked to come down to do a lecture series at Duke many many years ago and then I decided to do my homework on it and I was astonished that this was sort of our culture our history I was pretty impressed and then my father decided to bring the level of Boring Itself and upgrade it So he went through every great ad guy, as you say, every brilliant agency.
46:44Gene Pressman:And then finally, in 76, I brought women's in and I realized that these ad guys were brilliant at toilet paper and Purdue chicken and automobiles. But I'm not sure what they knew about fashion. So we decided to start hiring magazine art directors and then eventually copywriters. And then I brought it in house and we really did great work. I mean, we had brilliant people there and Barney's has always had, you know, it's not about me or the presidents. And we we've had just so many brilliant people come through our doors. It's always been this wonderful collaboration, sort of like a club. And it was a lot of fun.
47:28Gene Pressman:and um we did great work and we did a very innovative work i think we did risky work and we also you know barney's is about a sense of humor which i also think is something lacking today 100 not with you guys not with us of course we're waving the flag but a lot of people forget about humor and entertainment i think the more serious you are in a sense the more you have to make fun of yourself and people appreciate that and it's a softer message you know um and it's something that's built to last so that's always been our message and um i remember there was a guy named glenn o 'brien he was the uh rock and roll critic the music critic of uh of interview magazine at the time this was in the in 76 or 77 and i said to him actually it might have been so It might have been early 80s.
48:23Gene Pressman:And I said, Glenn, I knew him from around. And public access television was just coming on the market. And it was pretty weird staying, especially in those times. And Glenn had this TV show called Dance Party or something.
48:36Chris Black:TV Party.
48:37Gene Pressman:TV Party. Thank you. And he knew the whole downtown scene. And he would invite his friends on, like Deborah Harry and Chris Stein, you know, Jean-Michel Basquiat. dad i i don't know if andy went on there but he had very cool kids on and you know he had this dollar 98 beat up couch and the production was even less expensive than what i'm seeing with you guys right now and uh and um and it was it was an interesting show you know i think they were half cocked all the time but um so i invited him to the office and he said to me gene you know I never wrote one bit of advertising and I said, good, you're hired.
49:24Gene Pressman:He worked for us for 10 years and he was the most brilliant, again, using your expression, ad guy I've ever seen. Glenn wrote in staccato and he could capture a whole paragraph in like three words. and he really and then we had great art directors um and we we work with some of the greatest photographers in the world i remember uh yeah didn't you kind of discover corn day a little bit yes corn day um uh we work with steven meisel early on and um i remember um that in one of the early shoots mark ballad who's one of our great art directors had to go out and rent him a camera because he didn't have a camera to do the shoot so that that was pretty crazy um but yeah and so you know all of a sudden we were getting inquiries you know we love your ads would you do something for us so it was um the morgan's hotel group it was uh vitamin water which um was called something else at the time uh armani prana um she knows a lot of people in the fashion industry and we decided to do their work and it became sort of a profit center for us it was great because then it started to pay for itself and you know those things like that are all organic we don't plan we didn't plan on them we did them because we believed in our work and we loved what we did because of that you know other things starting to happen that is pretty insane
51:06Chris Black:i mean i guess that in that time though a lot of magazines would do ads for brands you know what i mean which that makes more sense like they would if you're going to run an ad in gqr esquire they would design the ad you know so it would obviously appeal to their readers but you guys were basically operating as an agency i mean at that point yeah no we had it was an agency because
51:26Gene Pressman:we had to have the bodies. And it wasn't an inexpensive proposition. So bringing in outside income was really a good thing for us.
51:38Chris Black:Diversify. Why not do what you're good at? If people want it, give it to them.
51:42Gene Pressman:The other thing about back then is there's very little organic thinking. It's always the cart before the horse. How can I make a zillion dollars? It's always about marketing marketing before you build a product you know with us it was always about if you build it they'll come and then you surround it with good marketing and you know some kind of physicality whether it be a well-designed store or cool windows or you know whatever it is but it always started with the product and and building relevancy and then if something became relevant maybe it would become cool. You know, I can't tell you, you know, I wrote a book many years ago with another guy named Noah Kerner called Chasing Cool.
52:30Gene Pressman:And the, the, the, really the premise of the book was, is that too many companies were obsessed with how do I make my product cool? You know, and, and we would sort of laugh in the board meetings because, you know, dude, if it's not in your culture, you could bring anybody you want from the outside, but it's just not going to happen. You got to make something really relevant first. And then virally, maybe as word gets out, it will start getting cool. And I think that's what happened with Barneys because Barneys wasn't really about for many, many years about making it cool. It was just about making it relevant and buying beautiful things and making great quality.
53:13Gene Pressman:And, you know, again, having that sense of humor to go along with the message. So and, you know, eventually it did start getting cool. as we changed the product i started in 1975 when saturday night live started i started seeing those people shopping in the store then when armani came in that changed everything and all of a sudden you know we store a lot of rock stars and celebrity types and then when when i brought women's in in 76 that changed the complete dynamic and yeah it became like a clubhouse it did become cool uh and of course i i really liked what i did it was fun yeah there's worse job there's worse
53:53Chris Black:jobs out there i mean i think there was a i mean my my move would always be to go on a on a saturday and start at the top you know what i mean eat and then just go all the way down and that's the fun
54:04Jason Stewart:you know that was the whole thing it's like you have a meal that you would get all every time
54:08Chris Black:chris or you mix it up i would mix it up i mean i would go that it was also a place where you'd go with like your friend's parents you know when they were in town but la too i mean when i when i was used to be in the music business like the william morris office was next door to barney's like i would valet at william morris do my little meeting and then go over to barney's and spend money that i just made and should have saved you know that was a couple vicodin and see what what's on the on the new arrivals right literally pop a pop a pop a couple vicodin and go buy some agnes b button-down shirts that i don't need that was the vibe agnes b was cool she was uh we were
54:41Gene Pressman:first customer in america she really kind of started the contemporary market you know it was about designer but not too expensive and sort of utilitarian but still very downtown cool it did
54:57Chris Black:it felt it did feel like a little bit more european than maybe i was used to and that was probably the appeal of it you know especially at the time because i wasn't exposed to that that much so i didn't know what i was reacting to yeah but i think you're probably right did you read it
55:10Gene Pressman:Barney Greengrass in LA at Barney's?
55:13Chris Black:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
55:14Gene Pressman:Yeah, yeah. Because Barney Greengrass in New York, I mean, I still go there. It's definitely one of the greatest Jewish delis on the planet. So that LA store, by the way, for me, and I built many stores, was the most beautiful store we ever built.
55:30Chris Black:Yeah, it was. I mean, you could see all the way up to the top. You know, it was like, if you're standing on the bottom, you could look up. It was beautiful.
55:36Gene Pressman:Yeah, the vision of that staircase was, I felt that, you know, we had a similar staircase but much smaller in size uh in the downtown barnes but the one in la i just felt that you know the dna of people that are from la they everyone thinks they're a movie star so as they're sort of just walking down the staircase they could feel good
55:59Jason Stewart:wave to the crowd you feel like you're being debuted you know we made we made sure that each balcony was also open so that you know people would interact and you know that's part of that's
56:12Gene Pressman:part of the fun right of shopping and the whole thing you know it's it's not just the frogs no it
56:18Chris Black:felt i mean also there was i mean there was a time that was also i feel like when i was going there a lot that was the heyday of us weekly and star and paparazzi photos and that valet that barney's valet was a the background in many many paparazzi photos from that era yeah like a paris hilton nicole ritchie lindsey lohan leaving barney's was a very somebody who's making money off of that
56:41Jason Stewart:not just you yeah yeah and also during that time when i would go there i always love going to barney's with like like you said your friend's mom is in town where are we gonna go you know My friend and I were just hungover from the night before, eating pizza for breakfast, a couple of pieces of shit. Mom's coming to town. What do we do? Go to Barney's. And it would be great because you could just be a broke guy who's 23, and you would be able to go to the most beautiful department store in America, and you never felt pressured that it was weird or you didn't belong there or you had to buy something just to be in there.
57:22Jason Stewart:like everyone was just cool and breezy and it was just a place that you could just go and hang out and a real third place or a third space as they say and that really doesn't exist anymore you know
57:34Gene Pressman:that restaurant was believe it or not one of the only restaurants in beverly hills that was high enough up that you could see the hills and have a view yeah and you had that big terrace outside because most of the restaurants there didn't have that you know um so that was kind of cool By the way, just to sort of get the record straight, Barney's was never a department store. Sorry. No, no, no. People confuse it in a good way in that it was big like a department store. It's a big-ass boutique. Well, it was a specialty store. And that comes from the men's roots. A lot of the men's stores were specialty stores.
58:18Gene Pressman:They weren't department stores. you know in fact if you if you see the way that the department stores treat their men's departments they hide them away somewhere you know and you have to go walk you have to go up five floors to get there or whatever it is so uh so that was a men's mentality but there were there were stores in new york i don't know if you knew them like henry bendel's back in the day of course i guess I guess for Dolph Goodman, those are specialty stores. I don't know if I Magnum was considered a department store or specialty store, but they were Macy's or Bloomingdale's. Neiman's.
58:58Gene Pressman:Neiman's. Well, you know, it's funny. I think Neiman's and Saks back in the day probably were thought of as specialty stores. Department stores, the idea was they carried everything.
59:10Chris Black:Like you could get a refrigerator.
59:12Gene Pressman:Yeah, exactly.
59:13Chris Black:Yeah, yeah. Get your yearbook photo taken. Who was your number one enemy, retail-wise? Who did you want to destroy?
59:21Gene Pressman:I don't know if I used the word destroy, but Bergdorf Goodman.
59:25Chris Black:That's what I was hoping you would say.
59:29Gene Pressman:Bergdorf Goodman and Barney's had a nice little healthy competition. That's good for business.
59:36Chris Black:A little rivalry is good for business, I think, no matter what the business is.
59:40Gene Pressman:And then I think Neiman's Marcus later on, but not in the same way because Neiman's owned Bergdorf, so it was part of the company. I think it got to the point where we don't take any prisoners attitude, that every big store hated us.
59:59Chris Black:Sure, sure, sure, sure.
1:00:00Gene Pressman:When I would always see the barn shopping bag in other stores, it would really make me feel good.
1:00:06Chris Black:Behind any lines. I didn't think about that. All right, so you're at Bergdorf kicking the tires, and you see people coming through the door with the Barneys bag. You're like, that's right, bitch. That's exactly it. You know where to go first.
1:00:15Gene Pressman:Or you see a woman coming in with like six Barneys bags over her shoulder and the whole thing.
1:00:21Jason Stewart:An impossible amount of Barneys purchases were made.
1:00:24Gene Pressman:Right, right. But, you know, it comes from that I guess my father and I always had a chip on her shoulder, maybe me more so, but that we were downtown yeah yeah and we were always thought of as like the second citizen and we really that's what made us so hungry and have to fight for everything and that's also it's funny because the paradox of the whole thing is that my dad when he wanted to upgrade barnies from being a men's discount store no none of the better manufacturers in america would sell barnies he went to you know in those days there were a lot of these sort of very conservative lines like hicky freeman oxford ralph loren whatever they wouldn't sell him so it forced him to go to europe and the irony is the stuff in europe was better and when he went to europe they were so thrilled that a new york store would come and want to buy their stuff and bring it back to new york because a lot of those people have never even been in new york they all opened their door you know happily and that's how we found all these designers and then slowly the american designers came around and it's funny in women's i didn't want a lot of them then but you know it's funny how that works again that's an organic thing it worked by accident and you know my father just went to europe and found all these great lines and then you know i learned by osmosis because he was such a brilliant merchant i mean the guy was a genius and i'm not saying that lightly i mean he would take me to europe at a young age he would expose me to so many things culturally and i was a curious fuck you know i just uh i'm allowed to say that right yeah you're you're allowed to say that okay okay uh so i my eyes were always open and so i started going to europe and i was i had long super long hair and I look like a rock and roller and I was dealing with sort of youngish to middle aged department store buyers who were I think set in their ways and very happy and established for their own businesses so they weren't as hungry as I was and I found all these young lines and I brought them back to America and you know one thing led to another and it snowballed and all of a sudden we had all these great exclusives that you could only get if you went to barney's yeah you know and then it just kept going we the great thing about barney's is that company always changed it was never satisfied sitting on its laurels it had great curiosity and
1:03:09Jason Stewart:from my point of view i i get bored very easily so yeah i push people to constantly find new stuff
1:03:16Gene Pressman:and i think our customer expected it and that was part of the charm you know and the fun of going there yeah and finding new things um when i would go into focus groups i hated focus groups that
1:03:30Chris Black:doesn't surprise me at all that doesn't surprise i am the focus group bitch yeah you know focus
1:03:35Gene Pressman:groups they're like they're like accountants they're 99 correct they're 100 useless you know Because they tell you what you want to hear. We had to do things for ourselves. We felt that our customer didn't know what they wanted and expected us to show them. That's what they wanted. You and a lot of companies say, well, I got to give the customer what they want, which I think is kind of dumb and self-defeating. No, people don't know what they want.
1:04:07Chris Black:You got to tell them. I agree with you.
1:04:09Gene Pressman:check out this new guy drees van noten yeah drees a great guy he just retired this year which you know and that's a funny story because we started buying men's and my wife at the time went to this men's show in paris and and saw these great white shirts and she was an incredible merchant too she she went to she said to him um can i buy these for our women's and he was just excited to sell us so he said sure he says well can you also make me like 20 pencil skirts you know pencil skirts a narrow skirt he said sure and that got him into the women's business and that's how it so again it was all about being organic you know when people are willing to do things in those things i think that's the other problem today a little too rigid out there well it's because it's run by the accountants and every industry has like three people owning it you know and yeah yeah sure everything is just homogenized and consolidated and you know you if you look in the film industry it's that way if you look in the fashion industry that way if you look in
1:05:19Jason Stewart:the publishing industry no one's taking chances no one's taking risks everything is backed by user gathered data analysis and then the whole thing is fucked out from the beginning yeah and
1:05:30Gene Pressman:you you gotta take risk you know sure i mean as a business person you're not doing this for your good looks but you gotta have a balance so maybe 20 or 30 percent some people would say less you know is risk taking and the rest pays the bills but you gotta have that magic mix and that's what barney's is about people didn't know this except they know it now that almost 50 of barney's women's was our own label which is extraordinary in women's because women's about fashion knowing
1:06:04Chris Black:men's you can do that obviously much easier because what are you talking you know you a guy
1:06:08Gene Pressman:comes in he likes his shirt he buys 10 of them you know women don't do that so but we had our own design team and the way i know that is because i hear that in the vintage market in those days we we didn't call it vintage which is called thrift shop but it got very chic now you know but but in the vintage market which is huge today everyone's buying vintage the barney's merchandise is like the first merchandise that fly off the racks yeah it's put up on such a high pedestal it's kind of crazy no i've got a bunch of barney's
1:06:43Jason Stewart:you know button down shirts that i got from the real real or ebay or whatever and you know like you said it's just it could be an armani shirt it could be a zenya shirt it's all the same and a great price same quality same construction same fit it's all there and then you know again in the
1:07:01Gene Pressman:book they all came to boars i'll plug it once um they in the book we talked about the business of and when i first did it i was afraid because i didn't want the book to be boring but i think in the approach that we did it it really was interesting for people that we did it for you know sort of altruistic creative reasons that we went and and and made these things because first of all we went to the same factories that the designers went to secondly we could cut out the middleman so we gave the consumers so much better price for the for the same quality and we also gave them merchandise i think there was a little bit more say modern classic not so trendy so it was kind of built to last and of course our margins didn't suck so we had great markup so so i think everybody won and that became a huge business you know and it sat alongside
1:07:57Jason Stewart:the designer um okay well yeah like you said the book they all came to barney so everyone should go pick it up lastly before we let you go did you have a chance to read the newsletter that i sent
1:08:09Gene Pressman:you yesterday oh no and i know you did your homework was i a bad was i a bad boy no no no i
1:08:18Jason Stewart:mean i just wasn't sure if you had any thoughts on it oh you mean oh i know you're talking about you're talking about that review that review yeah you know look first thing is um when you go when
1:08:32Gene Pressman:you're in this business you're a target right you got to take the good with the bad i didn't really take offense because i didn't find it written by a serious person i think today people spend a lot of time trolling because i think it makes them feel bigger and stronger you know for me it's such a waste of time if you got nothing nice to say don't say it at all you know there's so many better things to do take the high road that doesn't mean i don't i don't get pissed off you're reviewing to this review that somebody in san francisco wrote of the book and uh it was extraordinarily complimentary i want especially to me i i was very appreciative of it um i'm glad that he it was a long review so i'm glad he took the time and the effort to write that but i'm happy to say you know when i went into this project it was a very barney's kind of project it was the same reason that i worked at barney's is that nothing made me happier than when people enjoyed barney's and walked out with that shopping bag and felt good about themselves and i felt the same way about writing this book and i collaborated with a fellow named michael with Matthew Schneider, who's the food critic of New York Magazine.
1:09:59Gene Pressman:He's a brilliant writer. Friend of ours. Yeah, he's a terrific guy, and he got my voice. He's a good friend. He started out this lovely guy, and after three and a half years, he became this sort of nasty, grumpy guy.
1:10:14Jason Stewart:You're contagious. You're contagious a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
1:10:19Gene Pressman:But no, no, he's great. We're very close. But it's the same experience with the book. You know, you hope that if you like it and you have to be honest with yourself when you're writing a book, the hardest thing is to step back and sort of make believe like you're the customer, if you will, or you're the reader. And don't try to embellish and really be objective and honest. I think if you're forthcoming and it's not always easy, people respect that. And they, you know, they want that. So I think we accomplished that. you can't please everybody and you're not trying to but i was hoping that people would enjoy the read yeah and a lot of people sincerely have told me that they really enjoy the read when i hear somebody reads it in a day or two days and can't put that really makes me feel good because one of the things when i brought out my whip and was cracking it with matthew i said staccato staccato which means that you've got to have a quick pace and it can't be boring and it has to keep going on.
1:11:29Gene Pressman:And hopefully we stop sharing. I do think that people are going to enjoy this book, especially younger people. I think it'll be aspirational for them, and I think they'll relate. And everybody wants to see a feel-good, good-time story, and I hope they don't think that I was too full of shit.
1:11:55Gene Pressman:The amazing thing is I'm still vertical. I'm going to be 75 next month.
1:12:03Jason Stewart:Wow. For our listeners at home, Gene's a great looking guy, full head of hair. He's on that elliptical, sweating it out every morning, having his cottage cheese and his honeydew melon for breakfast. He's looking great.
1:12:15Gene Pressman:Yeah, I will say this one last thing to you. that, you know, back in the day, in the 70s, when I was, for the most part, single, I knew a lot of attractive women.
1:12:30Chris Black:Sure, it's your business. It's a lot of work.
1:12:32Gene Pressman:And I had some cool friends. There were a lot of people that would kind of come up to you and want to hang out with you. and honestly i didn't i i wasn't trying to be rude but i didn't have patience for it i just wanted to do my own thing and you know sort of respect my privacy and blah blah blah and so you know i think some people took offense to that and maybe when i wrote this book it was the same reaction i don't know but you know fucking that they can't take a joke fuck them
1:13:08Jason Stewart:I like it It doesn't always mean you're being a dick
1:13:13Gene Pressman:No it's like You can't give hangout tickets to everybody You know what I mean
1:13:20Chris Black:Amen That's good advice Thank you Gene we really appreciate it The book is out you can get it everywhere books are sold
1:13:27Jason Stewart:And if you're not a reader Audiobook available on Spotify as well You do a little bit of the reading as well That's good And thanks for taking the time Gene Gene, if we're ever down in West Palm, we'll hit you up. Go grab a bite to eat, okay?
1:13:40Chris Black:I'm hitting the elliptical. We're going one for one.
1:13:43Gene Pressman:No, you guys definitely have to come down.
1:13:45Chris Black:Anytime. All right. We'll talk to you soon. Appreciate it. Thanks, Gene.
1:13:48Jason Stewart:All right. Later. I'll hold the bags for you, Gene. Thanks, buddy. Talk to you soon, man. Thank you. Ciao. Ciao.
1:14:07Chris Black:I can't get enough of your love, baby Boy, I don't know, I don't know why I can't get enough of your love, baby
From the publisher
Gene Pressman, of the Barney's New York Pressman's new book, They All Came to Barneys, is out now. We chat with him from his home in West Palm Beach, FL, about LA being a better morning city, protein foam, Chris is eating his way through Los Angeles, Theo Vons in the news, Jason's Orange County Barneys experience, New York in the 70s, he had a boxing ring in his office, the early 90's financial crisis, public access television, starting an advertising agency in house, the importance of humor in marketing, his favorite Barneys location of all time, which of his competition he competed with the most, and you can't give "hangout tickets" to everbody.
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