As many of us do in this day and age – I waste far too much time on Facebook and other social media outlets. I belong to two FB groups that are all about vintage display windows, mannequins, visual merchandising etc. I have now and then posted some older pics for a #tbt. I’m always delighted at the feedback. So much so in fact, that several years ago I self published a book on Amazon using some photographs from some of my old display window designs. While the book has not sold gangbusters, it was great fun doing it – trying to remember how I came up with the designs – the process etc.
So with this post I am launching a series of “Flashback'” or “Throwback” posts from decades ago – from the archives so to speak. I am about to start a new book similar to the one already published. It’s a process that requires having photos and 35 mm slides converted to digital. You will always see the words “From the Archives” in the title of one of these posts.
This first book is just about one year at one store. The store was Bonwit Teller in Chicago located in the Hancock building on Michigan Ave. The Hancock is an iconic Chicago high rise (it has since lost that name when the John Hancock insurance company could not secure future naming rights and is simply known by it’s address now: 875 N Michigan Ave. – but as with Sears Tower it will always be known by Chicagoan’s as The Hancock). It’s a mixed use building with offices, apartments and ground level retail and restaurants. It opened in 1969. Bonwit Teller moved there from their location across the street at Michigan Ave & Chestnut.
It was a huge store that occupied three whole floors. It’s main business was high end and designer women’s fashion. There also were small men’s, children’s and home goods departments – but the main attraction was women’s fashion, accessories and cosmetics. The store was so huge that today it takes two stores to take it’s place (North Face and – the just closed – Best Buy – both of which do not have third floors).
It seems odd today that so much space was given to this high end, expensive fashion. The building itself is problematic for a retail setting with it’s setback from the street and sunken front plaza. It doesn’t actually make “window shopping” there very easy. Bonwit Teller remained in business there until 1989 – after having been in business at the prior location since 1947.
Even the main fashion window was problematic – it was located on the side street of Delaware and was enormous – 30 feet wide. It was very difficult to effectively use that much space to design display windows for installation. Minimalism was popular at the time – if even a bit avant garde. I used this minimalist approach more than not to design many window displays. The design I’m featuring with this post also employs one of my other favorite design approaches – repetition. In case you missed that post – here’s a quick link:
https://visualmerchandisingdisplays.wordpress.com/2017/04/05/repetition-as-design-discipline/
I was constantly trying to come up with ways to design a visually compelling and interesting window display that used the entire width of the window on Delaware. The entrance to the exclusive apartments portion of the building was also on Delaware and many of Bonwit’s customers lived there. On many occasions residents would call the store to see what the weather was like – apartments fill the upper portion of the building – floors 48 – 93.
I had just purchased at the display market in New York these styro-foam radiators from the premier display house of the time – Niedermaier. The merchandise more than not was designer dresses. I don’t remember the designers – but it was the era of Halston, Bill Blass etc. The radiators were placed at exact intervals. There was also a chair rail molding that was used as a prop – and for several subsequent display windows going forward at the time.
The display window itself was white – including the floor. When I started the job I had painted all of the display windows white – from black – not an easy process. I then made floor boards out of 1/2″ foam board and covered them in shiny white vinyl. This itself was time consuming as every few window changes the vinyl had to be changed to cover up the nail holes that were created when we would “strike” the mannequins to the floor.
To “strike” the mannequins was a process taken so they would stand on their own rather than use the clunky glass base and metal poles that they came with them upon purchase. Any fashion store worth its’ salt did not use the bases – we all would “strike” our mannequins with 20 gauge wire and “penny nails” – one set in front and one set in back. The striking process itself was somewhat hard to master and took a lot of practice to get it right.
The display window was a huge success at the time and received a lot of complements – upper management, employees and customers.
It is very hard to find many stores today that don’t consider display windows a waste of retail space. North Face – who currently occupies half the space – simply fills the Michigan Ave. windows with full size graphics directly to the glass and the Delaware side simply eliminated them altogether and filled in with racks of merchandise.
There are still stores who still do window displays very effectively – Ralph Lauren, Nieman Marcus, Macy’s etc. I applaud those companies for keeping this art of display alive in the 21st Century.
All photos courtesy of https://jdvincentdesign.com/
The book – both digital and paperback – are available at:
Visual Merchandising & Display Design 