At CityCenter’s 25,000-square-foot uniform distribution center on Dean Martin Drive, Jhane Barnes, a slight woman with squarish glasses and short hair, proudly shows off clothing racks heavy with new uniforms.
Barnes is a New York fashion designer who was tapped by MGM Mirage to design about half the uniforms CityCenter employees will wear. The first woman to win the Coty American Fashion Critics’ Award, her men’s fashions are sold in boutiques and department stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.
Barnes’ designs for CityCenter’s 8,900 uniformed workers don’t look much like uniforms at all. She favors subtle geometric shapes digitally printed on high-quality cotton, lightweight wool in browns and slate blues, and tightly-woven shirts with decorative, barely-there shapes and swirls.
Achieving that look is why CityCenter bosses chose Barnes, an iconoclast among fashion designers who stands out in part because she creates her own fabrics from scratch.
“I wasn’t supposed to design (traditional) uniforms,” she said. “But I didn’t want it to be like you walk in a place and you’re not sure who’s supposed to wait on you … I sort of designed in between.”
Barnes’ task seemed straightforward enough. She has created furniture and carpet for several of the architects and designers who created CityCenter. This time she would design clothes to go with the interiors, based on swatches of carpet and artist sketches.
