Barneys New York ranks as one of retail’s greatest makeovers — transforming from a menswear discounter in the ’60s into a chic and irreverent enclave for luxury fashion.

The retailer largely faded from view after the 2019 liquidation that saw Authentic Brands Group pick up the intellectual property.

But now, a new crew is striving to rework some of that Barneys magic.

One Lux Solution will be opening a Barneys New York in Naples, Fla., later this year, at the Bayfront. Authentic has given One Lux, which has been raising money, the exclusive rights to roll out Barneys in Florida.

Authentic has also been in discussions with the landlord of the former Barneys flagship building on Madison Avenue over possibly reviving Barneys with a new lease, but that would most likely need to be with a different operator than One Lux. Another possibility is bringing Barneys back to its original Seventh Avenue and 17th Street site in Manhattan, which is available.

The next iteration will have a lot of fashion history to live up to.

Barneys was the first U.S. retailer to sell Azzedine Alaïa, Christian Louboutin, Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and Dries Van Noten. Stylish Giorgio Armani men’s suits were brought to America by Barneys in the ’70s at a time when Wall Street was hooked on Brooks Brothers.

The retailer rebranded as Barneys New York in the early ’80s, reflecting the upscaling effort. A women’s annex was added to the Chelsea location by taking over a series of townhouses, and the nine-level, 230,000-square-foot flagship on Madison Avenue opened in 1993.

“The secret of Barneys was that it never stood still. It continually morphed,” said Gene Pressman, former co-CEO of Barneys New York, and grandson of Barney Pressman, the founder of the store. “It launched new concepts — the Chelsea Passage, the restaurants. It continually led the way and was never satisfied being what it was. My motto was, never give the customer what they want. They don’t know what they want. You have to show them.”

While Barneys became an industry icon, a combination of over-expansion, high rents, ownership changes, two bankruptcies, and a failure by latter-day management to heal the wounds, led to its total shutdown in 2020.

But clearly people have had Barneys on the brain. Pressman also rekindled memories of the store with his book, “They All Came to Barneys: A Personal History of the World’s Greatest Store,” published in September.

Saks Global was licensed to operate Barneys and had a “Barneys at Saks” floor at the Fifth Avenue flagship and a Barneys shop in Greenwich, Conn., until Saks’ bankruptcy this year, ending the license and forcing the stores to remove the Barneys signs.

“I find the idea of wanting to bring Barneys back titillating,” said Ken Downing, chief creative director at Xcel Brands. “I always shopped the Chelsea Passage home area. I was a huge fan of the Henry Beguelin leather bags and bowls and Jonathan Adler. Barneys always had interesting things like that. We all have fond memories of Barneys. But if everybody actually shopped Barneys the way they talked about shopping at Barneys, there would still be a Barneys today.”

When he served as senior vice president and fashion director at Neiman Marcus, and Barneys still operated stores, “I would often say to designers, if you want to sell clothes, come to Neiman Marcus. If you want to have your clothes hanging in a store, go to Barneys, because it was always a bit like a museum.”

By many accounts, reviving Barneys New York requires a merchant leader who can do justice to the legacy; building a talented creative team, and specifically on Madison Avenue, the willingness to meet the high costs of a luxury retail start-up. It wouldn’t necessarily need to precisely replicate Barneys of the past, but it would have to be unique, compelling, and filled with new experiences beyond designer appearances.

“The most important thing would be to find a merchant with the ability to execute a clear vision for Barneys — someone who knows how to execute that vision and can hire the right team members,” said Millard “Mickey” Drexler, chairman of Alex Mill, former CEO of Gap Inc. and J.Crew Group and founder of Old Navy and the renewed Madewell. “It could be worth it, bringing Barneys back, if they could find the right leadership. Barneys is a well-known, worldwide name which could make finding what it needs easier and less complicated.”

Asked if it’s worth it to revive Barneys, veteran luxury retailer Neal Fox said: “The answer is ‘yes,’ assuming they have merchants to run it. Where is a young Gene Pressman? Unfortunately, at big-box retailers there are no merchants anymore. They have become so [expansion] driven. Nobody learns anything about product anymore. What Fred Pressman did with Armani and what Gene Pressman did with Alaïa showed they understood the brilliance there. With e-commerce and brands opening stores, it’s much more difficult for any new player to succeed. But one thing I am positive about — there is a demand for a different brick-and-mortar experience with superior service run by professionals who know product. No doubt about it. People are hungry for it, especially younger people who have grown up doing all their shopping on e-com.”

Others wonder whether a revival of the uptown flagship is practicable.

Antony Karabus of Karabus Retail Advisory doubted whether the landlord of the Madison Avenue site or Authentic Brands Group would seriously consider bringing back Barneys on Madison.

“Given how ABG has grown so dramatically, they’ve got many other bigger opportunities to make significant more money,” Karabus said. “Designer brands have been opening stores at a rapid pace and are probably in almost every luxury or affluent area in the U.S. including building large stores on Fifth and Madison Avenues. And that whole generation that shopped Barneys when it was at its peak is gone. I just don’t see the opportunity.”

Downing added: “Retail is an expensive undertaking. There’s the costs of a physical plant and filling it with inventory and putting together a strategic, visionary team to make Barneys what Barneys needs to be today. With a Madison Avenue flagship alone, would the scale be there, to do the amount of business needed to keep the lights on and afford the overhead? To start a retailer of that level from the ground up again, the expense is almost prohibitive…We all loved Barneys because it was so niche. But the downfall of Barneys was that it was so niche.”

“The other thing to remember is, there’s an entire generation that has lived without Barneys and it’s not part of their fashion vocabulary.”

And Pressman added: “Could an entity called Barneys exist in the future — the answer is ‘yes.’ The consumer is dying for this, but there are major parameters. Who would lead it? It has to have a true merchant, a team of both experienced merchants and young merchants.

“There is not a lot of opportunity for as many young designers as there was once and designer prices are so high. Basically three [entities] own the whole industry,” Pressman said, referring to LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Kering SA, and Compagnie Financière Richemont SA.

He said that if Barneys is rebuilt, such as on Madison, it should be large, offering more than fashion. “It has to be a store [centered] around entertainment. It has to create theatrics. Fashion should represent maybe 50 percent. Obviously, food should play a big part of it and so should other things,” Pressman said, without specifying what a reconstituted Barneys should have. “It has to be a new Barneys that can really represent now and the future. It has to take a lead. The good news is that the internet, with the exception of Amazon which makes money, hasn’t worked. Other big companies that are doing several hundred million dollars online are losing money there. It’s hard to get people to go to your site. People want to enjoy the experience of shopping, getting that cool vibe, and socializing. Could a Barneys happen again — yes — but it would have to be a large situation run by really talented skillful merchants and a visionary.”

Regarding rebuilding Barneys on Madison Avenue, Pressman said, “Nobody is going to make that kind of investment, unless they own the property or maybe if it was 100-year lease, with a reasonable percentage sales.”

The nine-level 220,000-square-foot flagship site, at 660 Madison Avenue, has remained vacant since the store closed, except for some temporary uses including the Winter Show for antiques in 2022 and the Louis Vuitton “200 Trunks, 200 Visionaries” exhibit later that year. There was also a “Sex in the City” reunion at the space, among other events.

WWD previously reported, based on information from sources, that Jamie Salter communicated with the key owner of the Madison Avenue property, real estate investor Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., to lease the site, and reportedly offered a deal involving a percentage of sales, but the source said Ashkenazy balked at the offer.

A revived Barneys “has to be a long-term thing,” Pressman said. “If there was a Mr. Moneybags who believed in it and had a long-term view, if you had patience, if you took a long-term view, it could work.”