Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys New York — known for his high-concept, often impudent window displays, especially at Christmas — was the 2003 recipient of the Andrew Markopoulos Award, given annually by Display & Design Ideas.
The award, begun in 1996, honors the now-deceased store design and visual merchandising executive who retired that year from the department store division of the then-named Dayton Hudson Corp. Markopoulos died in 1999.
Previous winners have included Ignaz Gorischek of Neiman Marcus, Tony Mancini of Walt Disney, Judy Bell of Target, James Mansour of Mansour Design, Linda Fargo of Bergdorf Goodman and Chuck Luckenbill of Kohl's.
In accepting the award, Doonan said visual merchandising is always fun, always an adventure and always a very cooperative project. He thanked all the people he ever worked with and noted the many talented people who died of aids and never lived long enough to receive recognition such as he was receiving that day.