House of Mouse
There’s been much to-do over the Barneys holiday windows this season. While last year’s Lady Gaga collaboration pushed the envelope, this year the retailer decided to partner with Disney. Luis Fernandez, senior vice president of global creative for Disney Consumer Products, said that the concept behind the collaboration made total sense from a retail perspective. “We thought, ‘A huge force in fashion and a huge force in animation,’” he said in an interview. “‘What better than for these two companies to get together and do something for the holidays?’”
But controversy began to swirl like a wintry storm as early as August, when images from the five-minute “Electric Holiday” short, now playing in a constant loop in the Barneys windows, appeared on WWD’s website. The film showed a tall, lithe Minnie Mouse wearing Lanvin, which served as an immediate call to arms for plus-size advocates and celebrities, who slammed this “Skinny Minnie.” Dancer Ragen Chastain circulated a petition trying to get Barneys to “Leave Minnie Mouse Alone!”
However, there were no protests, nor a drop of mouse blood shed, during the unveiling of the windows last Wednesday night. Sarah Jessica Parker, who makes a cameo in the promotional video, presided, and all was quiet. Not a figure was stirring, not even the world’s second most famous mouse. There were no Gaga-esque light shows, nor intricately animated puppets appearing in a Christmas tableau. No animals riding animals, no snowflakes, no animatronics.
Instead, passersby were treated to a video of Minnie imagining herself at Paris Fashion Week—alongside other famed fashionistas (real and imagined), including Suzy Menkes, Linda Evangelista, Cruella de Vil, Juergen Teller, Anna Dello Russo, Captain Hook and the Cheshire Cat.
The Disney-Barneys collaboration is a far cry from Barneys’s usual holiday fare. Last year’s Gaga Workshop resembled a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-by-way-of-Madonna explosion of exhibits and interactive amusements. You could purchase chocolate shoes! Disco stick lollipops! One window was just filled with hair as a tribute to the musical.
When we passed by the following night, a guy was shooting a video of the entire movie with his iPhone. A woman in Chanel glasses hung back on the sidewalk with a friend. We asked her what she thought.
“Oh, it’s good,” she said, shrugging. “I just don’t know who that person is supposed to be.” She was pointing to a cartoon version of fashion blogger BryanBoy, wearing Mickey Mouse ears and watching Minnie strut her stuff.
“You know, Barneys always does funky stuff,” said a town car driver leaning against his ride, watching the display while waiting for a pickup. “That Lady Gaga window last year was wild. This is ...” He paused. “This is fine.”
Fears that the windows would incite Minnie-related eating disorders seemed unfounded as well, as two European tourists attempted to interest their daughter in the display and were ignored. She pulled them along, uninterested in Skinny Minnie.
The Observer decided to get a reaction directly from the source. For the first time in our lives, we went looking for one of those confrontational suit-wearing characters in Times Square, and spent 20 minutes in a world of life-size Woodys and Hello Kittys.
Finally, we ran into Minnie Mouse, with Mickey trailing behind her. We stuffed two dollars into her damp, synthetic paw and asked her, “How do you feel about Barneys making you into an anorexic model, Minnie?”
She responded with a pose, her dead, lifeless eyes boring into our souls.
Well, if she didn’t seem to mind, neither would we. —Drew Grant
