#barneys

#barneys

(A baby sand shark named Sinatra eventually had to be removed, for bullying his tank mates.) Across its nine floors, the store boasted twenty-three escalators, trimmed in goatskin leather. But construction delays meant that they didn't start revolving until the final moments before the grand-opening party, and new escalators need at least two weeks of use to stretch out their creaks.

When Fred maneuvered to steer him into Barneys, he was a start-upnot quite a nobody but a long way from the top. At that time, he barely had a label to speak of; after putting in time behind the scenes of fashion, the 41-year-old designer founded Giorgio Armani S.p.A. out of a two-room office in 1975.