Bergdorf goodness
One of the best writers in Sydney also happens to be my beautiful sister. Cath was in New York late last year and has written a blog entry for us about some the gems she found in the windows of department store Bergdorf Goodman.
A FINE ROMANCE Window shopping in New York City
Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue sure can put on a good show. I was in New York over the Christmas break and strode out in below-zero temperatures to window shop along this iconic street – just one of thousands of tourists cloaked in hat, gloves and a warm, puffy jacket.
This was my second evening on Fifth, the first passed in a blur of fairy lights (wrapped around the black skeletons of the trees growing from the sidewalk; twinkling silver and violet on the Christmas Tree at the Rockefeller Centre, flashing in snowflake patterns on the side of Saks, gift-wrapping the Cartier building in a giant phosphorescent red bow) and white steam from the street stalls hawking overcooked chicken kebabs and candied almonds.
This night, I’m on a mission: to stare, wide-eyed, into the windows of Bergdorf Goodman. One of New York’s most famous high-end department stores, Bergdorf Goodman is a first-stop for those in need of the latest designer wear. But it’s the outside windows I’ve come to see. Window dressing in New York is a competitive sport, especially over the Christmas period. Window displays with ‘wow’ not only lure new customers, they boost sales and communicate the brand values of the store. And the really great ones reflect the glamour and creativity of New York itself.
Bergdorf Goodman’s windows are the most staggeringly beautiful I’ve ever seen. Linda Fargo, senior vice president of Fashion Office & Store Presentation, and her team have created windows so steeped in fantasy, so rich in detail, they’ve become streetside art.
The windows are split into “stories”. In the windows that wrap around the ground floor of Bergdorf’s mens’ store, life-sized white bears duke it out in red boxing gloves. Erect mannequins sporting masculine layers of wool, tweed and denim are finished with ram’s heads (or no heads at all). A white wolf – immaculately turned out in dinner jacket, cashmere scarf and squeaky leather gloves – lauds over a arctic pool table draped in frozen icicles.
On the other side of Fifth, the womens’ store is split into three distinct areas. Along 57th the colour palette is a dramatic red, black and white, with an elaborate Fornasetti-style backdrop of a cobblestoned town square, complete with surrealist town criers and telephone exchange.
On 58th, the mood shifts to the romance of a far-gone era, with elegant mannequins posing in sequins and cinched waists, their long, satin-gloved arms holding jewelled purses, ivory chess pieces and a harpsichord.
But it’s the windows that sweep along Fifth that really impress. Fargo and her team spent two years planning, preparing and scouring online auction sites to bring their theme – “The Seasons” – to life.
There’s Winter, a graceful artist at her easel wearing sequined pedal pushers and a billowing pussy-bow blouse. Spring, a snow white fantasy of birds and feathers, and Autumn, a beauty queen perched upon the crescent of the moon. White colours almost every detail, including the clothes, characters and precious gems filling every centimetre.
Fargo, who has overseen Bergdorf’s windows for more than a decade, calls her work “phantasmagorical destinations” that reflect the personality and ego of the store. She believes store windows start a romance between potential buyers and the product within. And I prove her right.
A few days later I return to the store a third time, take the escalator to the fifth floor and snap up a Marc by Marc Jacobs’ Silk Daydream Top. Its pretty camouflage print and shocking pink trim are sweet reminders of the time I fell I love with shopping all over again.
- Catherine McCormack
Posted by Secret Squirrel on Thursday April 2, 2009
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