Baz Luhrmann Unveils Wonderfully Insane Barneys Holiday Windows

This year, the retailer has teamed up with Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin, the husband and wife duo behind such larger-than-life films as Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby, to create four astonishing window displays. Called “Baz Dazzled,” the four windows were revealed Thursday night in New York City and are themed, as Barneys says, after the couple’s “beloved tenet of truth, beauty, freedom, and love,” and feature unforeseen yet celebratory décor. The windows took more than 100 people to assemble over the course of ten months, according to Style.com.

If you've ever seen a Baz Luhrmann film, or viewed Catherine Martin's costume designs up close, you know the husband-wife duo doesn't really do "subtle" or "understated."

It's what makes the collaborative couple a perfect match for Barneys New York, as the three collaborated together on the retailer's 2014 holiday windows and gift line. In a city where each department store is trying to outperform the competition, the holidays are all about making things big and bright which happens to be Luhrmann and Martin's forte! Under a banner which read "A life lived in fear is a life half lived," a cappella group Pentatonix performed Christmas carols as the whole story of the windows unfolded.

The ‘Baz Dazzled’ theme doesn’t stop at the store’s façade, however, Barneys has also released a gift guide that includes limited-edition Baz Dazzled items such as a snow globe and jigsaw puzzle. And in case you needed another reason to shop the collection, Barneys will contribute 25 percent of all sales from the Baz Dazzled holiday collection to Room to Read, an organization that works to improve literacy and gender equality in education in the developing world. Talk about getting into the holiday spirit!