Forget robins and Santa, Christmas 2013 is a more abstract affair. John Ryan takes a tour of London’s West End to see the Christmas windows on display.
Christmas is that time of year when tinsel, robins, holly and Santa are all rolled out and installed in retailers’ windows to remain there until the sales are done and dusted by Twelfth Night. Except that this year both the luxury and mid-market merchants appear to have taken the view that overtly Christmas-themed windows can be, to a large extent, dispensed with and an alternative take on the season of goodwill put in their place.
Broad clues are, of course, provided about the reason for the visual merchandising splurge and for the most part this means snow and abstract fir trees, but that’s about it. The other point about Christmas 2013 is the dominance of product in retailers’ windows. This looks like a move away from the window schemes that attempted to tell stories in previous years. Instead, it has rather more to do with shifting stock.
An after-dark stroll around London’s West End suffices to tell the story of Christmas Present. Doubtless, the story of Christmas Yet To Come (ie, 2014) will be different.
John Lewis, Oxford Street
A few years ago if you’d said that John Lewis was in the running for the most innovative windows on Oxford Street, you’d probably have been politely shown the door. Now the retailer that was once known for its Warhol-like approach to window displays, with repetition of the same item in multiple colours, has moved on and uses household items to create displays that are engaging and act as crowd-pleasers for all ages.
Whistles, St Christopher’s Place
This is probably the most grown-up, minimalist and perhaps least impactful display among the many seasonal windows in the West End. A series of pointy cones in varying shades of green are used, presumably, to give the impression of a forest of fir trees. This could in fact be almost any time of year, such is the low-key feel of what has been done, and the near-invisible ‘Let’s Get Festive’ command does little to mitigate this.
Zara, Oxford Street
As with sister Inditex fascia Pull & Bear, there is a really low-cost, easy roll-out feel to this display and the positive from a Zara perspective is that wherever you happen to be in the world, the execution will be the same. In terms of brand consistency, therefore, this is about as good as it gets. Yet in spite of the Merry Christmas message spelt out on a black background at the back of the window, this is one of the less seasonal offerings – the merchandise says ‘fashion’, rather than ‘festive’. Christmas windows are installed months ahead of time in the basement of the Inditex headquarters near La Coruna in Spain and every detail is the result of careful consideration with nothing left to chance.
Urban Outfitters, Oxfrord Street
A window that has a supernova-style explosion used as decal applied to the glass is certainly eyebrow-raising and probably costs next to nothing to realise. Urban Outfitters has deftly used this window starburst as a vehicle to inform passing shoppers of the brands it has in stock – the names are fi tted among the beams of the explosion. There is nothing Christmassy about this, but it succeeds in making shoppers think it is perhaps time to head into the store on a present-hunting mission.
Boots, Oxford Street
There is something of New York’s Times Square about what Boots has done with its storefront halfway along Oxford Street. Passers-by armed with digital cameras were stopping to snap this wall of light which, with its ‘Merry Christmas’ message, vies with Selfridges’ ‘Destination Christmas’ for the most eye-catching and overtly seasonal display on the strip. Inside the shop, things were much less ostentatious, but in terms of making a stir, this one takes some beating.
Pull & Bear, Oxford Street
A simple scheme with a retro space-age feel to it characterises what Inditex fascia Pull & Bear has done in its Oxford Street store. Putting individual letters of the alphabet in fake snow-filled transparent globes and spelling out ‘Christmas’ is a low-cost solution. But it works and in case the shopper misses the point, burnished gold letters have been applied to the window with the words ‘Hyperspace Christmas’ adding to the scheme’s impact.
Karen Millen, Regent Street
Karen Millen on Regent Street has been putting semi-architectural displays into its windows for most of 2013 and as Christmas looms it has opted to install geometric white paper garlands that twist and curve across the whole of the glassline. Christmas is party time, and the merchandise on display fits with this seamlessly. Whether this window actually says December 25th is a moot point, but it is hard to ignore.
Mulberry, New Bond Street
The luxury brand keeps things simple using a mildly abstracted version of the familiar German nutcracker figure to put the Christmas message across. In this instance, the military Toytown figures have been made monochrome, allowing Mulberry to pay lip service to the time of year without distracting from the merchandise it is trying to sell. Pared back and effective.
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