As a visual person, one of the things that I get most excited about when shopping is the holiday window display. Window displays are a wonderful way to entice a shopper on foot to come into your store, and show off the goods that you are currently really trying to sell. However, as with any marketing effort, there are window displays, and then there are WINDOW DISPLAYS.

The Christmas window displays in the shops of New York are where visual merchadising is truly elevated to an art form. These stores understand that their windows not only serve as an enticement to the on-foot shopper, but, in our digital age where images are shared globally, a truly unique social media opportunity. There is even a section of the New York City travel website dedicated entirely to a Christmas window tour!

Bergdorf Goodman always sets the gold standard for window dispays year round, and has a section of their website completely dedicated to showcasing their efforts. Their November theme is “Brilliant”, a series of windows sponsored by Swarovski that showcases the glittering fashions of the season.

 

 

Another notable display this year is the design of the Cartier store. What appears to be a simple yet elegant decoration of a red bow wrapping the building gets all the more complex with an interactive in-window display featuring the traditional red Cartier boxes that open and close, revealing sparkling jewelry inside. Other holiday window displays of note include:

 

 

 

 

 

The window displays at Lord and Taylor feature animations in the windows of their holiday homes.

 

 

 

The windows at Tiffany and Co. feature dioramas of historic shopping in
New York.

 

 

 

The Parisian apartment-inspired windows at Henri Bendel are not large enough to hold all of the decoration; light displays sprawl over the façade of the building, and a 2-story tree greets shoppers in the atrium with large-scale replicas of the ornaments that are for sale in the store.