Dramatic Window Displays Clog Sidewalks From Coast to Coast

This photo taken Oct. 27, 2009 shows artist Ryan Piguet creating a conehead caricature for a "Saturday Night Live" theme holiday windows display for Barney's, New York.

(Bebeto Matthews/AP Photo)

It's not quite the warm and fuzzy crowd one imagines around most Christmas trees, but Barneys New York is celebrating the holidays with a motley crew that includes Roseanne Roseannadanna, the Church Lady, Father Guido Sarducci and Wayne and Garth.

Two dozen "Saturday Night Live" favorites have been transformed into life-size, papier-mache ornaments to hang in the windows on Madison Avenue as the flagship store puts on its biggest visual show of the year. There's Will Ferrell as Janet Reno looking very prim and proper and Mike Myers as "Coffee Talk" Linda Richman with bright red nails and lips.

Atypical? Yes, but the quirky characters seem like they'd be right at home at a holiday party with Simon Doonan, Barneys' renowned creative director.

"We like to set ourselves apart by picking something that's a little out there," Doonan says. "Our windows can't be elitist, but we can't do `traditional.' We'd have to make Santa out of ketchup or something if we went that way."

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Doonan decided more than a year ago that this year's holiday message would, above all else, be witty. "We had to have fun — it had been such a dismal year," he says.

Holiday windows, he explains, are supposed to generate traffic, bring hoards of shoppers and tourists to the front of the store to "ooh" and "aah," and garner some media buzz. At the same time, the windows need to convey taste, luxury and humor, all of which he considers the core of Barneys brand.

So, just how will John Belushi's King Bee in the window help sell some of the most expensive apparel and accessories that hang on the racks inside?

He doesn't have to, exactly.

"What we've got to have in our windows is something `current.' We look for things that have a surge of interest," says Doonan. The 35th anniversary of "SNL," coupled with its spot-on coverage of last year's election, convinced Doonan that now was the right time to honor these oddities of pop culture.