Lights, Camera, Technology!

Dante, in his “Inferno,” said that the hottest spots in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in a crisis. So as this nervous holiday season approaches, skittish retailers are operating in crisis mode, and it is no wonder that most retailers have recycled last years windows and fall back on same ole, same ole concepts. Currier & Ives, red sale banners that offer up to 40 percent off (…on selected merchandise, watch that small print), gold reindeer, oversize Christmas balls and plastic snow with glitter (do not inhale). They live in the prehistoric past, as in B.G. (Before Google); they remain neutral.

Smarter retailers, with their pulse on consumer trends, are filling their windows with a dazzling array of lights, cameras and technology. Demonstrating that despite economic predictions, you can still have yourself a merry little Christmas. Among my favorites is Louis Vuitton. They have taken their iconic logo and symbols, and produced them in bright candy-colored hues like their purses and clutches. Placed seemingly harem-scaram against a mirrored backdrop, which doubles their impact, it encourages customers to stop, and adjust their scarves as they stop by. Rest assured there is a method to their madness. The windows are just entrancing. It is very Las Vegas-y, almost tacky--a guilty pleasure, but still satisfying.

Right across the street is always elegant, Tiffany & Co. Instead of the expected, they have classically characterized white neon fir trees outlining a dark photograph of a gloomy forest, nestled at the bottom of a snowy hill, there sitting solitary is their robin's egg blue box, presumably fallen out of Santa’s satchel. It is poetic. I want what is in that discarded box too. It is so pretty I could cry.   

On Madison Avenue an eyeglass retailer has an astounding, and eerie, presentation. They have taken a classic egg-shaped, abstracted mannequin head, and have projected a live action face on it. It is executed with brilliance. The face winks, smirks, sneezes, sticks out his tongue, flirts, smiles, and adjusts his glasses. It is so bizarre that I wish every retailer would incorporate the technology. Passers-by are caught off guard. Even I was thinking I could use a new set of frames...not. Survival these days is based on distinguishing yourself.

Retailers GANT and Kenneth Cole are practically a stone’s throw away from one another. That did not stop them from installing flat screen TVs to trap customers. Lest it get lost on you, almost 1 in 5 Americans are getting a flat screen this holiday. GANT collaborated with www.thesartoralist.com. Scott Schulman, showing behind the scenes montage of his candid fashion shoots. This adds a fashionable cache to GANT’s classic American line.

Kenneth Cole, brilliantly controversial, and 100 percent apropos, places flat screen TVs at the feet of his mannequins. The images are swapped out with chunky books, stiletto heels, pumps and Chelsea boots. Some of the images dance, one gets stuck on a wad of gum, another jumps up and down. Sometimes the images match up perfectly to mannequins, at other times it looks like the male mannequin is wearing the stilettos. Above the mannequins is the tag line "We all walk in each others shoes." A lovely sentiment that becomes profound when you realize that the images are not what you may have assumed, all the feet belong to marginalized groups, a person with AIDS, a transgendered woman, Tammy Fay Baker’s son, Reverend Jack, a tattooed rock-and-roll born-again preacher. There isn’t one cliché ridden visual, thank you visual merchandisers, may I wish you a Merry Christmas! It is amazing what a little light and technology can do.

--Ron Knoth, Guest Blogger

Santa and Steampunk

It was no more than a fortnight ago, May 16, that Diva introduced her readers to the fashion rage Steampunk (check out "Let Off Some Steampunk"). Perhaps you thought she was just pulling your leg...if so, let me pull the other one.

As we draw to the end of the industrial revolution and usher in the age of technology, it’s no wonder that Steampunk resonates. Steampunk connects to a nostalgic romance with the past, a desire to not move so quickly. At first glance it looks “traditional,” but don’t be deceived. That being said, Steampunk is making its entry into holiday windows up and down the Avenue (that’s Fifth Avenue).

Steampunk may be complicated to decipher, but the gist is this--it’s a harmonious blend of the past and present, with visual references to high Victoriana, gas lanterns, street criers, gothic, pen & ink, gramophones, candlestick telephones, lithography, royal typewriters with umlauts, hand-crafted or artisanal-made clothing. Steampunk offers a metaphoric coping device. It has an allegorical tie to artistic movements, and artists who were living in a world of turmoil at the time of the industrial revolution. Steampunk may seem antediluvian, but it is really far from it.

The culture is full of Steampunk-inspired films, and plays like Johnny Deep in “Sweeny Todd” or Brad Pitt in December’s major film release “Benjamin Button.” On Broadway, “Spring Awakening” based on an obscure 1891 German novel is totally steampunkable, it's 1891, but with a twist of four letter words, rock & roll and baby doll dresses.

My mother used to say “Great minds think alike,” if so, pcitured above are two side windows, one by Lord & Taylor, the other by Bergdorf Goodman, neither copy-catters...both personify Steampunk. They are frighteningly similar, no?

Bergdorf Goodman’s front windows are a virtual homage to Steampunk. Creative Director Linda Fargo, like the Pope, is infallible. With simple two-dimensional foam core cut-outs, props doused in white paint and a dream like assemblage, she makes bustles practically sexy again.

If Steampunk has a mission, it is, in part, to restore a sense of wonder to our technology-laden world. Today’s satellite photos make the planet seem so small that we may wonder where our place is in it.

The Internet has compressed our world view into one miniscule mélange. In contrast, Steampunk, with its wondrous airships and time machines, is sort of a dream, the way we used to daydream about being an astronaut.

The glorious Paul Stuart (who, if he was a real man, I’d be in love with) transforms their mannequins into puppets playing with puppets. I’m completely charmed.

Steampunkers love old fashioned forms of entertainment like vaudeville, contortionists and yes, marionettes.

Juicy Couture with aplomb inserts Steampunk elements like costumes, chess pieces, kilts, medieval breastplates and directional hands into they’re own sexed up Steampunk display.

Santa, with his big burly boots, black strapped belt and white fur trim falls perfectly into Steampunk--he was, however, not evident on Fifth Avenue. I presume he’s busy up in the North Pole. FYI: sleighs…very steampunk!

--Ron Knoth, Guest Blogger

The Fur Will Fly

PETA may take umbrage, but despite the movement towards environmental friendliness, the fur is flying…off the racks. Say what you will about fiscal austerity this year, but retailers are promoting luxury furs this holiday.

If a white sable is not in your stocking, take heart, a politically correct (non-endangered) hunted (not trapped) red fox may be. (And I’m not talking “Sanford & Son’s.)

Up and down Fifth Avenue, cloth coats are lapelled in beaver, coyote and rabbit. Not since Nicole Kidman in the fictionalized account of Diane Arbus, "I like it!" lost it to Robert Downey, as Jo-Jo the Dog Boy in 2006’s “Fur,” has fur been so fetishized. Fur has a historical resonance. So important was a fur to ensuring social status that Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest sold herself into a bad marriage for a mink coat, but so did slews of sit-com wives… think Lucy Ricardo.

Fur has been absent from ready-to-wear for ages. Lindsey Lohan may be prone to a flour pouncing from PETA Italiano, but store after store is boasting fur as this year's splurge item.

Lest you think that I’m pulling your leg, Juicy Couture, Bergdorf Goodman, Robert Cavalli, Salvatore Ferragamo and Saks have fur prominently displayed in their holiday windows. Is it a trend? Is it a fad? Is it all just coincidental? Do great minds think alike? I know that they don’t share the same buyer.

I don’t know why fur has suddenly exploded on the scene, but the message is loud and clear. Fur may be one of this year’s “must haves.”

The coats coincidentally remind one of the Depression era. Think Angelina Jolie in “The Changling,” or Monty Wooly in “The Man Who Came To Dinner,” which may account for its return.

More fur your consideration…does the man wear the clothes, or do the clothes wear the man? When fur clothing is not evident, taxidermy is, like Bergdorf Goodman’s Men’s and Brook Brothers.

For some there’s a “yuck” factor, seeing formerly living squirrels, chipmunks, rams and polar bears playing in the great American store window.

What does the preponderance of fur suggest, the need for warmth, a connection to nature, the sensuality of touch, luxury, connection to a staple of a prior era, breaking the rules, defiance of political correctness and man’s control of the environment.

Will you be taking more than a furtive glance when it comes to fur?

--Ron Knoth, Guest Blogger

(Psst! DDI's annual Winning Windows competition will take place in New York the second week of December. Awards will be presented at the 12th annual PAVE Gala. Winners also will be recognized in the January issue of DDI, and online at www.ddimagazine.com.)

A Store Window Sneak Peek

Not often does a site come around that gets my design juices up and flowing, but this new blog by Anne Corrons is a fun, international peek into the everyday world of window dressers the world over. Offered with both French and English translations, Ms. Corrons shoots one or two retail shop windows every day in New York--with a few side trips to Paris, London and Barcelona from time to time--dialogueing her take on the designs within. Her commentary is light and insightful, but the pictures speak a thousand words (especially for those of us who do not live in New York but lust wondrously over the store windows when we are able to take a leisurely shopping stroll in the city). Happy window shopping!

--Alison Embrey Medina

Wizard of Saks

Visual junkies are in for a treat--courtesy of Retail Design Diva guest blogger Ron Knoth. Last month, he captured these Wizard of OZ windows at Saks--an amazing presentation that was only up for a few days. "I can't fathom how much work went into them," Knoth says. "It was a special last minute deal with MGM to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the film. The windows were magical and fused Dorothy as a Rootstein mannequin trapped in NY's Saks, aka The Emerald City. Replica red ruby shoes seemed to be magically coming out of the window." Additionally, top designers created couture and red sequined shoes for the presentation. To top it off, the shoe department inside boasted a yellow brick carpet. Enjoy the photos below!

Wizard of Oz meets Saks Fifth Avenue:

Cool Customers

Sometimes the best window displays are completely accidental.

On a recent tour in midtown I saw that Daffy’s, a popular designer discount outlet was redoing its “Cool Customers” windows. Daffy’s often toys with clever word play in its advertising, this particular round referencing its hip fashions and customers as personifying “cool,” and the season being inordinately cold, a perfect time to promote its outerwear. This one chilly mid-morning Daffy’s on Madison Avenue left their fiberglass forms out in their birthday suits, nonchalant, undressed, unaware of the irony. Like the classic actor’s nightmare, I too wondered what it might be like to be left undressed in public, with a sign hanging over my head “cool customer.”

Unapologetic, with his arms folded the male mannequin in the foreground seems to be daring customers to pass comment. Undressed as jaybirds, with their proverbial pants down, both mannequins were as exposed and vulnerable as our two recent governors, who were also caught in flagrante, furthering the window's irony. I did make a mental note that the mannequins' postures and forced expressions were eerily reminiscent of recent press conferences. Time permitting, check out the video of a 3-year-old in her princess costume recounting former Governor Spitzer’s exploits as she explains, "everybody was talking about it at school," substituting the word prostitute for "his friend."

I was fascinated how people on the street seemed blasé, and detached epitomizing the “cool customer” mentality, which got me wondering why this particular window was one of the most interesting in the neighborhood to me.

Flirting with public relations disasters, the sexually explicit window displays at Victoria’s Secret have been toned down considerably to meet community standards, which appear more modest than the Eisenhower administration. Window displays by and large have uniformly followed the same Spartan template, a large oversize graphic, centered, with a minimal off-centered display of a single headless mannequin--think Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, Club Monaco, Macy’s and The Gap. As a result, customers have learned not to expect too much, which is exactly what they receive. Macy’s in Boston was forced to remove their display celebrating Gay Pride last June, when customers complained that one of the mannequins was wearing a Gay Pride flag as a sarong. Once Macy’s acquiesced, other groups protested the windows removal. You can’t please everyone all the time. Citing controversy and adverse PR, retailers have shied away POV windows altogether. Citing political correctness, retailers have shied away from sense of humor windows. Commentary on popular culture and the social scene has given way to safer, i.e., blander concept windows on color blocking and innocuous seasonal presentations. If I see another all white window display I’ll just go postal. Many windows have been co-opted by manufactures and designers, (fee for product placement) hence the litany of windows devoted to single items like fragrance or cappuccino makers. It’s a great source of revenue for the retailer, but is a window full of boxed out displays of potato peelers the best that Bed Bath & Beyond can do?

At capacity store windows should be the eyes of the store, leading us inside to the soul of the store. Windows should reflect the personality of the retailer, which invariably like a real person, should be many things, not just one. There are slews of talented visual merchandisers out there. I know many of them. They do great work. They are smart, witty, brave, creative, clever and adorable. Often stymied by management, and jury by consensus, I wish that they could apply their craft, elevate their artistry and offer customers something more interesting to look at.

--Ron Knoth, Guest Blogger

Eye Candy

There is a big difference between what is a fad and a trend. And I know a trend when I see one. While I don’t rely on a crystal ball, I do rely on the fashion magazines and shop windows on Fifth Avenue to assist in my prediction. Here goes…this year, and next, retailers in droves will be jumping on the “Wet Look” bandwagon, and the latest thing in mannequins will be their “finish,” not their style, pose or posture. The new “wet look” is in. Rest assured mannequins will be shinier than your old tube of strawberry flavored lip gloss. The flat white chalky mannequins of days of yore may not disappear entirely, but they will be fewer. Today’s mannequins have shine appeal.

Following what we’ve seen stroll down the catwalks, the “wet look” has captured couture and mainstream fashion retailers alike, which is why we’re seeing a preponderance of clothing produced in shiny fabrications--waxed jeans, oiled linens, slick polyurethane down vests. Glossy fabrics, once considered cheap and déclassé, have made a comeback, including patent leather, gold lame, pleathery spandex, super-shiny silks and acetates. Versace’s gold linen men’s suit was the talk of the Milan shows. It’s not just a pretentious fashion accessory, Tom Ford needs to wear his signature sunglasses, as his showroom is awash in Zenga suits blended platinum or something equally shiny. Shiny finishes have infiltrated the popular culture too. Now that TV has gone digital, even the dullest newscasters have tossed away their old wool suits, and replaced them for suits made with a touch of shine and sparkle to add that extra dimension to your 42-in. screens.

This “wet look” trend follows the influence of metallics that have been, and continue to be, seen on the fashion pages. Mannequin manufactures seized upon that trend in 2005 and began to introduce automotive finishes a few years ago. That’s right, you could get your Lexus or Prius in the same color as your junior or women’s ready-to-wear mannequin. About the same time mannequin manufacturers started adding pearlescent and opalescent flakes to their paint mix to create jewel-like finishes known in the trade as “candy coatings.” A benefit of the flake was that it added depth of color when lit that standard paints cannot offer.

The wet look suggests liquidity and movement, even dark colors like black, when produced in a high gloss, reflect light and become a mirror-like surface that is fun to play off of. The look draws the eye. Emotionally the “wet look” is just in keeping with the timbre of the times. It's fluid, sinuous, expansive, neither here nor there; it’s ever changing and constantly moving. It’s reflective and anamorphic. In these transitional times it appeals to our psychological subconscious.

Wet is the new dry.

--Ron Knoth, Guest Blogger

Windows That Pop

The Harrods spring 2008 campaign is all about experiencing the luxurious department store and its products with all senses: hearing, sight, taste, touch and smell. How divine! The campaign, which was conceptualized by the Harrods creative team and realized by Elemental Design, invokes bright colors, playful props and interactive elements to create a sort of window theater.

More than display windows are decorated with props such as strawberries, champagne bottles and horses. To play off the sense of taste, the strawberry window is decorated with a vinyl image of a pile of strawberries, dripping with chocolate. One of the strawberries is a 3-D prop attached to the outside of the window, with strawberry lollipops placed inside for customers to take with them. The champagne window also speaks to the sense of taste.

The sense of sight is highlighted in the Phillips window, where a plasma built into a mirrored unit creates an optical illusion--making it look as if there were nine screens instead of one. The other part of the window is a mirrored unit showcasing constantly changing lights. 

"Interactive windows are the future of window display," says Nicola Metzger, the head of mrketing at Elemental Design. "It is all about creating brand experiences that truly engage target customers and make them remember a brand."

Now if only they gave away free champagne and plasma screens in addition to those lollipops!

--Jessie Bove

Step Outside the Box This Valentine's Day

Okay, here's the deal: traditional Valentine's Day gift ideas are lame-o, with a capital 'L.' Chocolates, flowers, lingerie (let me buy it myself, for god's sake!) and jewelry is a bit tired. Yet, how are we supposed to do any better when retailers only offer up the same-old goods year after year? A recent jaunt through the mall left me empty handed. Did I really want to give my man chocolates in a heart-shaped box? Um, probably about as much as he wants to receive one.

Fortunately, AreYouRomantic.com launched just in time for V-day, offering sassy ideas for spicing up the romance in any relationship. But, first they did a poll to uncover the following:

 -70 percent of men are waiting until the last minute (read 5 p.m. on Thursday) to make Valentine's Day plans.
-Men typically give their partners cards (59 percent), flowers (42 percent) or candy (19 percent).
-68 percent of women feel men should be planning something special.

So, with that in mind, here are some gift ideas for V-day beyond chocolates and flowers to 'wow' your significant other. These are gifts you can get pretty much anywhere, which means no more blaming retailers for not giving us better options.

And, for the record, I don't think it's only up to the guy to make plans. Ladies, we're notoriously good planners--so get your guy something fun and fabulous!

For him:
-iPod accessories
-Razor phone
-Clothes, clothes, clothes--specifically gym gear and sexy boxers (not the ones with red lips!)
-Book: Mortified: Love is a Battlefield by David Nadelberg
-19-in. flatscreen computer monitor
-Subscription to Men's Health or GQ
-Weekend at a posh downtown hotel--make sure flatscreen televisions are somehow included

For her:
-Sex & The City - complete DVD series set
-Spa day
-Gift card to her favorite clothing retailer
-Plush, short bathrobe
-LG Chocolate phone
-Kate Spade handbag
-Weekend at a bed and breakfast

See, that wasn't so bad. And if you're without a valentine, remember it's just a commercialized, silly holiday. Oh, and those chocolate hearts are on sale on the 15th--I'll see you at Target to cash in.

Do you have a fabulous V-day gift idea for either him or her? If so, share your wisdom by leaving a comment.

--Heather Strang

Baaaaad Abercrombie

Abercrombie & Fitch has been gettin' dirty on the beach--Virginia Beach to be exact. Its store at Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach, Va., had a visit from law officials after some customers complained of lewd photos being displayed. One of the photos reportedly showed three shirtless young men (no biggie...G-rated), with one man's "upper buttocks" showing (okay, butt cleavage definitely slides slightly into PG-13). The other image was of a woman whose breast was "mostly exposed" (moving right into the R-rated there, I admit). Honestly, if they're the same photos on A&F's Web site right now, they're really not that bad. A bit of overreaction if you ask me. However, Virginia Beach code prohibits display of "obscene materials in a business that is open to juveniles," making the sexy photos a no-no.

This is my favorite part. The police not only came in and confiscated the two display photos (where are they now, I ask--bathroom decor in the police station?), but the store manager was cited on a misdemeanor obscenity charge, and if convicted, could face a fine of up to $2,000 and as much as A YEAR IN JAIL. Ouch.

Abercrombie sells sex--they always have. What makes a thick-striped rugby shirt and corduroy pants a turn on is a mystery to me, but I admit to having saved a catalog or two of theirs in years past (they halted them in 2003, 'tis a shame). Luckily, most of their stores are so dark, the majority of customers probably missed the "obscene" graphics anyway. You need a flashlight to find your size in that place.

--Alison Embrey Medina