The new Barneys Coop on Atlantic Avenue is the perfect place for well-to-do Brooklyn fashionistas — but you need more than money to shop there.
You need hips like Kate Moss.
Otherwise, you’re too fat for Barneys.
The store opened last Thursday, so I headed right over to browse for something suitably sleek. I quickly found a fantastic No. 6 cocktail dress in black with a watercolor print and ruching on the side. After my initial sticker shock — It’s $315? Well, it is pure silk — I couldn’t help but try it on, if only to dream.
Barneys only offers three sizes of the dress: one, two and three, which, I was told, correspond to small, medium and large. I grabbed dresses in size two and three and headed to the fitting room. I’m a small or medium everywhere I’ve shopped, but I took the large because the dress looked like it ran small.
The medium was too small, but I figured that the large would fit fine — but I couldn’t even get it over my hips! As much as I pulled and tugged, it wouldn’t budge.
Look, I know I’m no 1990s waif look cover girl, but I’ve never not fit into a large of anything — in fact, a large is usually too big.
Then it hit me: As fashionable as I consider myself, am I too fat for Barneys?
We called Barneys and Creative Director Simon Doonan told me that, well, maybe I was. Of course, he didn’t say it like that. He used … euphemisms!
“There are certain designers who are all about the body,” explained Doonan. “Others make an easy fit. You might need to look at other designers that focus less on the body.”
Perhaps, but how many hours of research does a customer have to do before she can go into Barneys and try on clothes? Or perhaps the better question is this: how many hours on the treadmill?
Barneys [194 Atlantic Ave. between Court and Clinton streets in Cobble Hill, (718) 637-2234].
