Biography
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A native of Reading, Berkshire, England, the son of Betty and Terry Doonan, Simon Doonan's first retail job was a summer position at Heelas, a department store in Reading, now owned by the John Lewis Partnership. After returning to work at the same store after university, he first got involved in the art of window dressing. He later left Reading for London and dressed windows at Aquascutum before moving to Nutters of Savile Row. [3]
Invited to dress his windows by the proprietor of Maxfield, a department store in Los Angeles, Doonan moved to the United States in 1978. In 1984, he designed the gallery scene for the hit movie Beverly Hills Cop . In 1985, he worked for Diana Vreeland at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum. He joined the Barneys staff in 1986 as a window dresser. His windows became a tourist attraction in New York City. He continued to work for Barneys NY until it closed in 2019. He was awarded the prestigious CFDA award for his work at Barneys. In 2011 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Fashion Institute of Technology.[ citation needed ]
While working at Barneys he consulted on various other projects including The Warhol Look exhibit at The Whitney Museum in 1997 and the Christie's auction of the estate of Marilyn Monroe in 2000. He helped decorate the White House for the first Obama Christmas in 2009. In 1998, Callaway/Viking published his memoir Confessions of a Window Dresser. This began his writing career. In addition to writing books, he has written regular columns for The New York Observer and Slate . In 2008, his second memoir, Beautiful People, became a BBC TV series starring Olivia Colman, Layton Williams and Luke Ward-Wilkinson.[ citation needed ]
In September 2008, he married ceramicist and designer Jonathan Adler in California. They currently reside in Florida and Shelter Island, New York with their rescue terrier FoxyLady.[ citation needed ]
