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Holiday/ Sales Event Display

Create a display for a Holiday or Sales event. Must clearly incorporate theme, setting, specials, signage and apparel. Who are you working for? Retailer? Boutique? Designer? Be prepared to present and discuss.

After years of minimalism, sparse designer trees and discreet decorations, European Christmas shop windows for 2006 were full of opulence, exaggeration, luxury, glamour and eye-catching glitter.

Bright colors accented with gold, silver and pure white transported shoppers to a different world. Recent cinema releases, including “Marie Antoinette” and the new James Bond flick, were replayed as common themes, while classic childhood dreams of Santa were reinterpreted in quirky animated worlds. An eco-conscious message appeared amidst the consumer frenzy, while holiday lights made everything sparkle. Here’s a review of some of Europe’s best seasonal displays.

Antoinette. Marie Antoinette.

Sofia Coppola’s film “Marie Antoinette” inspired many rich holiday decorations. The film’s rococo theme was prominently displayed in the windows of Paris, London and Dusseldorf, Germany, among others.

Elaborate floral decorations became stylized Christmas trees to match the film’s extravagant coiffures. Curtains, tiaras, powdered wigs, butterflies and pastel colors recalled the world of the decadent pre-revolutionary French court. On a note of self-irony, Parisian department store Galeries Lafayette hung its mannequins upside-down to show what an aristocratic life of excess can bring.

The new Bond film, “Casino Royale,” was re-created with remarkable authenticity for the Harrods’ holiday windows, one of London’s major tourist attractions. Before the film was released, movie clips played on numerous flat screens and real film sets and props were displayed, including Bond’s Aston Martin DBS.

Four windows alone were dedicated to the film’s costume designer, Roberto Cavalli, with all the glamour of a world-class casino.

Return to Fantasyland

Many well-known European departments stores, like Galeries Lafayette (France), Galeria Kaufhof (Germany) and DeBijenkorf (Netherlands), portrayed classic Christmas tales with enormous installations and countless mechanized fairy tale characters. Princesses, bears, bees, piglets, bunnies and dolls tinkered at a chocolate building site, hurtled through space and played in a grand orchestra.

Rejoice and Recycle

In Great Britain, Harvey Nichols’ Christmas windows carried a timely and important global message: our planet, its squandered resources and the urgent need to care for Mother Earth, particularly at Christmastime when a lot of waste is generated.

In spite of this cautionary message, the windows were spectacular in showing how glamorous junk can be. Waste sourced from junkyards and thrift shops, like old greeting cards, parts of old dolls, broken plates and twisted candelabras, were repurposed to create beautiful Christmas trees and other festive decorations.

Gold Rush

The return to glamour this holiday meant gold was the key color throughout Europe, with accents of silver and pure white adding a glittery feeling. But the season’s opulent palette left room for a riot of fluorescent color, including pea green, Schiaparelli pink, bright orange, acid yellow and midnight black.

LEDs and energy-saving lamps in spectacular arrangements illuminated these colorful displays. Galeries Lafayette used multi-colored light projections to light up the store’s façade, resulting in a magnificent kaleidoscope of moving images. In a more subdued but equally enchanting show, Harvey Nichols used stark spotlighting to enhance each individual tree with a flame effect that emulated the look of falling snow.

So many ideas, big efforts and perfect mise en scène all transformed Europe’s shop windows into delightful Christmas worlds, building the joy of the season.

y Angelika Frank

Levi's Celebrates the 4th with 'Go Forth' Campaign

(June 2009)

Message pays homage to brand heritage, while positioning it for next generation

Levi Strauss & Co. (San Francisco), one of the world's largest branded apparel companies, has developed a new 360-degree brand campaign that will launch this holiday weekend. The campaign, created in conjunction with advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy Portland (Portland, Ore.), aims to capitalize on youthful optimism and pioneering energy and to reinforce Levi's jeans as the jean of self-reliance, hard work, and an independent, hopeful spirit. "The campaign takes the raw, tough, and eternally optimistic spirit that made the Levi's brand great and brings it to life as a clarion call for this generation," says Doug Sweeny, vp, Levi's brand marketing.

The "Go Forth" mantra will stretch across all key touch points, including product innovation, retail experience and TV, cinema, print and digital advertising outlets. Two spots celebrate the works of American poet Walt Whitman, who was chosen to represent the democratic power of real people. "Walt Whitman's best writing always sought ways to face the adversity, bad times and suffering around him and to find hope in the future," says Ed Folsom, co-director of the Walt Whitman Archive.

Levi Strauss reaches more than 110 countries with its products under the Levi's, Dockers San Francisco and Signature by Levi Strauss & Co. brands. The privately held company reported net revenue dropped to $951 million for the first quarter ended March 1, 2009. The decrease was primarily due to the loss of Levi’s and Dockers sales to U.S. customers who declared bankruptcy in 2008, weaker sales and higher sales allowances for Dockers products in the U.S.

Union Square Windows (2007)

Retailers’ San Francisco holiday displays reported to be more "staid" than usual

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Union Square retailers have taken a “simple but spare” approach to their holiday windows this year.

“Is it the economy?” asks reporter Sylvia Rubin. “Years of overseas strife? Or is San Francisco just not that into it?”

Saks Fifth Avenue on Post Street “has muted, minimal displays featuring mannequins in pretty dresses surrounded by large papier-mâché snowflakes and fake snow. The flagship New York Saks windows are more elaborate, with motorized ‘snow people’ riding the subway and stepping in and out of taxicabs.”

Taking their cue from New York, Saks’ San Francisco windows play up the snow theme but leave out the mechanics. "This year's windows are more streamlined, more minimal and more focused on fashion," Lisa Ritterhoff, Saks’ San Francisco visual director, told the Chronicle.

Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus also focused on fashion this year. Neiman's Stockton Street windows are trimmed in green backgrounds and white graphic suspended butterfly panels, with special-order spring 2008 designer dresses in gold, silver and white.

Rubin writes that Barneys New York, in its first San Francisco holiday window, does a playful and ironic take on commercialism, with the first green holiday window in its history.

“It was conceived to coincide with the store's switch to eco-friendly catalogs and recycled shopping bags,” she reports, “so this year, the creative staff went pawing through piles of aluminum.”

It took six months for the visual staff to collect enough soda cans and bottle tops to create the giant, colorful "Rudolph the Recycling Reindeer" that graces the front entrance of the O'Farrell Street store.

Simon Doonan, Barney’s creative director, said the soda can displays were very labor intensive, but far more spare than New York's display. "The reason is, our windows are small here, that's all it is," he said.

Rubin speculates that the staid-ness of the windows could be read as: We're just so trendy. The renewed interest in stream- lined mid-century home decor and architecture and a more streamlined fall fashion season with less embellishment and baubles could be the inspiration.

"Mid-century modern is modern again," said Nancy Cresta, the visual communications program coordinator at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (San Francisco). "Window dressers have to be aware of current modes of style if they are doing their job well," she says. "They are the eyes of the store."

Tony Bennett Songs, Infiniti Convertibles

(November 2008)

New York retailer will kick off the season with its window unveiling on November 20

Macy’s Inc. (Cincinnati) has announced that its New York-based Bloomingdale's division will collaborate with Sony Music Entertainment Inc. (New York) for its 2008 holiday promotion campaign. And, for the second year in a row, Infiniti, the luxury division of the Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. (Tokyo), will sponsor the unveiling of Bloomingdale's holiday windows at the flagship 59th Street store in Manhattan.

On Nov. 20, 2008, Tony Bennett will perform live, singing a selection of holiday classics, as the fashion retailer debuts this year’s holiday windows theme on Lexington Avenue. Bennett has also created an original watercolor of the Bloomingdale's marquee whose image will be reproduced on the store's holiday shopping bag and a special electronic gift card. Each Bennett-designed gift card will feature a code that gives recipients access to download an exclusive "Jingle Bells" track - which he recorded for Bloomingdale's - via iTunes.

"There's no better way for us to usher in the holiday season than to have Tony Bennett unveil the Bloomingdale's windows and perform Christmas classics on Lexington Avenue," said Jack Hruska, the retailer’s executive vp, creative services (and a member of the VMSD editorial advisory board). "With our amazing assortment of gift ideas and fashions, the continuation of our exciting music campaign and Infiniti's sponsorship and exclusive new offering to our customers, Bloomingdale's is the destination for holiday shopping and entertainment."

In addition to its sponsorship of the holiday windows, Infiniti will reveal its new G Convertible over eight pages in the Bloomingdale's holiday catalog. The automaker will make 199 Premier Edition G Convertibles available to Bloomingdales' customers through the catalog six months before the vehicle is available to the public. The vehicle will also be on display in four Bloomingdale's locations from Dec. 10, 2008, through Jan. 10, 2009 in Tysons Corner (Va.), South Coast Plaza (Costa Mesa, Calif.), Lenox Mall (Atlanta) and Orlando.

“Nobody is going to say the fourth quarter won’t be tough,” Hruska told The New York Times. Still, “we didn’t pull back, because that would be “foolish. People want to feel good about the holidays and what the holidays mean, sharing time with family and friends. And “shopping can take your mind off the uncertainty we have to live with every minute of the day. Even if you don’t buy anything, you can always wander around and do something free at Bloomingdale’s.”

“The luxury market has been impacted like the rest of the car market” by the economy, said Ben Poore, Infiniti’s vp, marketing. But “there’s still great demand for product like this that’s unique, that’s exclusive.”

elanstyles.com is the website for premiere houston fashion stylist and creative élan raichle rogers. élan specializes in fashion styling, prop styling, show production and fashion consulting with particular regard to photo shoots and marketing and advertising fashion campaigns. élan's work can be seen throughout product and apparel marketing such as Hewlett Packard and handbag designer Elaine Turner; various modeling agencies like Neal Hamil and Page Parkes; editorials and publications such as The Advocate, skirt! magazine, Todo Texas, and 002Houston; her annual fashion show benefitting Spay Neuter Assistance Program; multiple television appearances as a fashion expert on Fox Morning News and KHOU-TV’s Great Day Houston; her instruction of Fashion Styling/Imaging and Visual Merchandising at Houston Community College.