Levine shapes this story less as a tragedy than a lesson in hubris--and in business. All of Barney and Fred Pressman's business savvy corrupted into snobbery when Fred's sons took over. Barneys became "too New Yorky for most New Yorkers." There's an old saying that no one goes broke underestimating the taste of Americans. The converse is that fortunes are easily lost going the opposite direction. Barneys may be the most fascinating proof of that adage in American history. --Lou Schuler

Product Description
This is a rags to riches to rags story.

It took three generations to build Barneys into the world's most fabulous clothing store--and less than a decade to tear it down. This fascinating book is at once a family saga, a cautionary business tale, and a riveting, superbly detailed behind-the-scenes account of how a secondhand store founded on pluck and chutzpah grew into a glittering international retail empire, only to founder on greed and hubris.

It is a tragicomedy of truly Greek proportions, featuring a full cast of larger-than-life heroes and villains and fools, spun in dramatic, novelistic style, and written in evocative prose by a distinguished editor at Forbes. Patriarch Barney Pressman started small in 1923, but within two decades he was selling more suits than anyone in the world. By the time his son, Fred, took over in the 1960s, Barneys was a thriving institution, and Boys Town at Barneys was the site of every New York boy's clothing rite of passage. But Fred had loftier ambitions; he was never comfortable with the crass discounter image. He staked the family fortune on European fabrics and design, wound up transforming the entire world of men's fashion, and made a killing along the way.

But it was Fred's sons, Gene and Bob, who really wanted it all--not just a store but a grandiose temple of ultimate chic. Instead, through extravagance, flamboyance, greed, and an arrogant disregard for sound business principles, they raced heedlessly into one of the most spectacular business flameouts in retail history.

A tasty mix of high fashion, high finance, and overweening family ambition, The Rise and Fall of the House of Barneys is a book every bit as stylish and well tailored as any suit the Pressman dynasty ever sold.

This is a rags to riches to rags story.

It took three generations to build Barneys into the world's most fabulous clothing store--and less than a decade to tear it down. This fascinating book is at once a family saga, a cautionary business tale, and a riveting, superbly detailed behind-the-scenes account of how a secondhand store founded on pluck and chutzpah grew into a glittering international retail empire, only to founder on greed and hubris.

It is a tragicomedy of truly Greek proportions, featuring a full cast of larger-than-life heroes and villains and fools, spun in dramatic, novelistic style, and written in evocative prose by a distinguished editor at Forbes. Patriarch Barney Pressman started small in 1923, but within two decades he was selling more suits than anyone in the world. By the time his son, Fred, took over in the 1960s, Barneys was a thriving institution, and Boys Town at Barneys was the site of every New York boy's clothing rite of passage. But Fred had loftier ambitions; he was never comfortable with the crass discounter image. He staked the family fortune on European fabrics and design, wound up transforming the entire world of men's fashion, and made a killing along the way.

But it was Fred's sons, Gene and Bob, who really wanted it all--not just a store but a grandiose temple of ultimate chic. Instead, through extravagance, flamboyance, greed, and an arrogant disregard for sound business principles, they raced heedlessly into one of the most spectacular business flameouts in retail history.

A tasty mix of high fashion, high finance, and overweening family ambition, The Rise and Fall of the House of Barneys is a book every bit as stylish and well tailored as any suit the Pressman dynasty ever sold.

I can't recommend this book enough if you enjoy shopping or business books. I continue to shop occasionally at NY and Beverly Hills. You can't go into the stores without better appreciating the history of the store. BUY THIS BOOK.


A Cautionary Tale for Expansionist Managements   September 19, 1999
 3 out of 4 found this review helpful

It seems everyone talks to Levine because as Barney Pressman once told Fred, "The Pressmans have no friends." What emerges is not only a morality play but also a case study on how not to raise your children and how not to expand your business. Hubris is a horrible thing. Time and again though during this decade, with Wall Street money plentiful, retail managements successful in one locale expand their businesses to places that don't want them. A concept that works in NY doesn't seem to play in Peoria, or with Barneys, in Texas. While with public companies, it's only money; with Barneys, privately held, it's family and lives. Maybe that's what makes the Barneys' tragedy a fascinating read.