Window
Displays
( Originally Published
1902 )
Simplicity——concentration——force!
Such are the show window qualities that attract.
Complexity——over-display——frippery!
Such are the show window qualities that distract.
And the difference
between attraction and distraction is the difference between gain
and loss of trade.
Some natures——essentially
vulgar-love over-display and pointless adornment. But intelligent,
well-ordered minds love, the strikingly simple——the display or
arrangement that gives expression to an idea without loss of
force.
The show window is a
great factor in swinging retail trade. Its importance is not
appreciated to the degree it should..
Yet retailers are giving
more and more thought to the question of intelligent window
dressing.
In the writer's
estimation the keynote of intelligent window dressing is
simplicity. A window full of ladies' and children's garments,
arranged with the intention of displaying the greatest assortment
possible, is not as trade-compelling as a few garments mounted on
figures gracefully poised before a large mirror. A windowful of
all sorts of house-furnishings does not for a moment begin to
compare with the window given solely to a kitchen scene or wash
tubs or tinware or something that accentuates the use of a certain
line of merchandise.
Speaking about the
advance in the art of window dressing, many merchant readers will
remember how (in their visits to New York) they used to walk up
Broadway and note the helter-skelter arrangement of the windows.
In a clothing window would be a few overcoats, a few odd coats, a
few suits, a few twenty-five cent ties, a few suspenders and a few
other things making a weird contrast and effect, a combination
possessing neither weakness nor strength. Yet the window dresser
would show the same system (or lack of system as you like it), day
after day until the passer-by who gave even little thought to the
subject wondered why people showed such poor taste in window
dressing.
But today it is another
story. Today look in these same windows! When you look you see
something! You see back of a window exhibit the idea standing out
in bold relief A window may be given to an effective shoe display,
and mind you, there will be nothing else in that window but shoes.
(This shoe display is to help that shoe ad in the papers
yesterday.)
Another window will be
given exclusively to a handsome line of overcoats (to emphasize
the overcoat ad of two days previous). Mirrors, figures and black
velvet effects are skillfully used in displaying the merchandise
and the result is.
A clean cut, concrete
expression of an idea.
Motion in some form or
other is given much study by leading window dressers. During the
holiday seasons especially, animated window displays are found in
the windows of nearly every important city establishment. The eye
is instantly attracted by activity and it takes but a few minutes
for a crowd to gather about the window with marionettes or the
high kicker or the goggle eyed dummy with the cigar.
