For the childless Questroms, it really is a family affair. Allen jests about it, but his fashion-savvy wife (legendary on the Dallas benefit circuit for pairing a Chanel motorcycle jacket with a ballgown) may have wanted her husband's last act in the retail world to be something she could relish. One front-row fashion player and friend of the couple suggests, "She's whispering in his ear a lot." During the spring collections in September, Kelli sat beside her husband at every show. "She's always liked the avant-garde designers. She and Allen have shopped at Barneys for a long time," explains Ron Frasch, the head of GFT (USA) who worked for Questrom at Neiman Marcus.

During his first weeks as the new chief, Questrom seemed to be everywhere at once: He visited the stores, chatted with floor managers and sales assistants, and sized up his new quarters.

Questrom's secret is that he does not sleep. Frasch recalls, "He wakes up at four in the morning, and he takes a walk or bikes, and then he does all his paperwork -- so when he arrives at the office, his desk is clean, and he's ready to work." And for him, work means getting out on the selling floor.

Rose Marie Bravo, who ran I. Magnin when Questrom was at Neiman Marcus and now heads up Burberrys, understands her colleague's approach: "He's a people person. At Barneys, he will figure out four or five initiatives, and he'll see them through. He won't get bogged down."

Questrom freely dismisses Barneys' employees' notorious "igloo effect," pointing out: "They may not be so friendly when you first come to the store. But once they get to know you, our people are more knowledgeable and more educated about the product."

Questrom has a lot of affection for his people, no matter how unruly they might seem to others. He is especially proud of the merchandising team. The general manager of the men's division, Tom Kalendarian, has been with the company for more than twenty years. "He can not only select the finest-quality product -- he could probably make the suit. He grew up in the business," marvels Questrom, who delights in this kind of old-fashioned-work-ethic nostalgia. If the men's department impresses him, he is in awe of the women's buying team, headed up by cool-hunters Judy Collinson and Julie Gilhart. Collinson has been snapping up new designers for fourteen years. She's got the sartorial eye of a Gene Pressman and is legendary herself for launching and building esoteric design careers like Susan Cinciolo's and Gregory Parkinson's.

Questrom continues the pep talk: "This is a great store," he declares, "and people want to work here. It's like being part of the New York Yankees -- a team that has had 25 championships in 100 years. There's a bit of magic."

But if he's a proud father, he's an exacting one, too. "Allen won't go in and shake things up and bring in his own people. He'll keep the core team," says Ron Frasch. "He was the most demanding boss," Frasch recalls of the hard-line Neiman years. "We had all been quite comfortable in our glamorous environment, but when he came in, he made us cut our support staff in half. Now all of the executives had to share assistants, and we were running divisions. We were all angry, but there was no room to argue, and he told us to figure it out amongst ourselves. He put that money directly into the sales floor. We figured it out and we got our work done. He made us better managers -- but he was tough."

"Stores come and go. Look at Charivari," Questrom points out. "The ones that survive are the ones with new designers. We are very good at finding the nobodies."

Frasch reports that Questrom was the first Neiman chief to accompany buyers to the European collections. "No chairman had ever done that. We were terrified. On the plane ride over, he drilled us nonstop, for nine hours. And then when we finally arrived at the shows, while everyone else in the front row chatted away waiting for the show to begin, Allen would ask us how the show's designer was doing in our stores. It was torture. We would be seated at the Thierry Mugler show, and he would be quizzing us on how many pieces we sold in Fort Worth. So for the next collections, we came prepared. I lugged two heavy binders of our numbers all over Europe. While we waited for the show to begin, we would tell Allen exactly how many Dolce & Gabbana skirts were sold in Fort Worth that month."

Counting couture pieces only solves part of the problem. Questrom is also focusing on growing markets. In the first week of January, a new bridal shop housed in the Co-op's swank penthouse setting, complete with a terrace overlooking Central Park, will open. The atelier will offer daring designs from Azzedine Alaïa, Olivier Theyskens, and Josephus Thimister as well as a custom-veil-maker. Ellen Carey, who worked at Barneys and is now a retail consultant, applauds the strategy: "It's genius, because with their reputation and their ideas, they'll do it better than anyone else and it's a good market to go into. It's like the fur salon at Bergdorf's. It's meant to be there."

There is also a private-label maternity line, Procreation, the brainchild of Collinson and Doonan. Questrom is excited to show off the clothing's sweet pink label. Expectant moms can opt for leather pants and jeans with expandable waists. "As far as maternity wear went," Barneys' P.R. chief, Jason Weisenfeld, snickers, "the only thing we sold was Kiehl's baby products . . . maybe." The old Barneys simply would not have considered these blooming (and moneymaking) markets.

But the new 9,000-square-foot Co-op is the main arena of Questrom's sales-boosting plan. And it isn't just the size of the department that makes it different from the old days. In another break with the Barneys formula, the clothes will have a lot more color. "I think Bonnie Pressman did the all-black thing," teases a competitive fashion executive. "Maybe if they had done more color back then, Barneys would have been profitable."