Perhaps I'm naïve to think that a large department store should present a more or less unified front in terms of customer service. I've always found the jewelry attendants friendly enough, if a bit chill and withholding in the way any of us might be watching over expensive merchandise right by the front door.
Barneys New York captures the essence of trendy, expensive New York.
The designer floors are less populated by the casual visitor, so the salespeople know their clients, and even if they don't, the clerk-to-customer ratio is large enough that you don't wind up feeling left out.
But at Co-op, two floors with a mix of younger labels like Trovata, Marc by
Marc Jacobs and Miracle Icons, the clerks are either pushy — one guy persisted in trying to sell me an $800 Sissirossi purse even after I told him I thought it looked like a large intestine — or indifferent, frequently disappearing as soon as you enter a changing room.
On a recent occasion I tried to flag the attention of four clerks standing by the register while I stood half-naked in the dressing-room twilight waiting for a salesman to fulfill his promise to check on sizes for me. It was as if they had already marked me as someone else's commission. They stood, their arms folded, chatting as if at a cocktail party. I gave up, put all my winter clothes back on and approached the cash register, dress in hand. Faces lit up, but automatically, in the grim theatrical way when the expressions are utterly artificial. Had anyone helped me? No, I said.
Summoned as if by magic spell, the mystery man appeared to ring up my sale. "Excuse me, I helped you," he offered gaily, the oleaginous charm dripping off him like suntan grease, sweeping the dress ($385) into his arms.
"Actually, no, you didn't," I said.
"I'm sorry," he said, addressing not me but the other sales clerks. "I had to take a phone call, and it went longer than I expected." I bought the dress, and he got his commission treat. It went longer than I expected? I'll have to burn sage around the thing before I ever wear it.
And yet. Stopping in the cosmetic department is almost consistently a pleasure. Unlike the first floor of Saks, which is such an off-putting marketplace of salespeople stabbing at you with lipstick that I often perform emergency yoga moves on the street before entering, the Barneys staff is not rapacious. This is partly because they often work for the individual brands, not Barneys, and if they do work for Barneys, the commission they receive is puny, one clerk told me.
After I bought a tube of Sue Devitt lipstick — this was when I was offered the water and a neck massage with scented oil — the sales clerk threw several samples into the bag, telling me I would just l-o-v-e the St. Barth's cream rinse. Later that week I got a small package in the mail with two miniature tubes hand-labeled "St. Barth's cream rinse" and a cheerful note that read in part, "Sorry I forgot to put these in!"
As for my friend with the broken handbag, I just wasn't sure if she was Barneys bag-worthy. So I gave her the one from Dress Barn. Sometimes it's good to be humble. Or at least pretend you are.
Barneys New York
660 Madison Avenue (61st Street); Manhattan; (212) 826-8900
ATMOSPHERE Varies depending on the floor, from the serene white tundra of the designer floors to the chaos of Co-op to the lunchtime social brawl that is Fred's.
SERVICE All over the map.
KEY LOOKS If you were a Martian placed in New York City with an unlimited budget, this is where you would go to look as if you were from Noo Yawk, from jeans to ball gowns.
PRICES Generally expensive. Project Alabama cotton jersey and hand-embroidered cardigan, $1,355; Jovovich-Hawk minidress with lace trim, $535; Clements Ribeiro leather fisherman sandals, $430.
they vaguely know what went on at the runway, so i'm able to talk to them about the collections.
she called me in december for their sales but i couldn't get anything else 
