design:retail - January 2015 - (Page 10)

editor's note 010 The Looking Glass ALISON EMBREY MEDINA EXECUTIVE EDITOR alison.medina@emeraldexpo.com @dretaileditor H AVE YOU seen the online video "Look Up" by Gary Turk that went viral last spring? (If you haven't, take a moment to search and watch.) Told through a love story that might have been missed, it essentially is a spokenword poem with the message that if we don't look up from our smartphones and experience the world, the world might pass us by. It's a thought that has resonated with me often over the last year. How "connected" we all are today- not in touch or spirit, but through the confines of social media. At our recent design:retail panel at the Retail Design Collective this past December, Peter Levine from dash design shared an exquisite thought about how most things we view today come through the lens of a glass screen, whether it be through our phones, tablets, laptops or desktops. To combat that cold sleekness, that shiny reﬂective world, he suggests that color, texture and pattern will have a major push in retail store design in the coming years. It's as if we are all subconsciously craving a tactile experience, when so many of ours today are limited to a two-dimensional glass window. Enter the retail store window display. Turk's video and Levine's comment both rung loudly in my ears as we toured the streets of Manhattan this past holiday season, seeking the best and brightest holiday windows New York had JANUARY 2015 DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM to oﬀer. The standouts this year all had a similar vein running through them-texture, emotion and a nod to nostalgia. In a sense, they all had a very real human element that resonated with our judging panel and, ultimately, aﬀorded them the top prize (see our selected winners and a few other favorites on page 48). Truthfully, I watched as would-be passersby stopped mid-text, looked up and paused, taking in all that the windows had to oﬀer. There was Saks, with its so cute and so clever fashionistas living out their fairytale dreams on the streets of Manhattan. Anthropologie with the most life-like collection of birds you can imagine, all crafted from-you guessed it-paper. (Even one from a New York subway map!) Barneys with its real ice floor and live ice skaters twice an hour (granted, I walked by five times and never saw them). But have you ever seen ice skaters in a store window? Me either. Bergdorf Goodman with its expected perfection, artfully reworked year in and year out. Macy's with the "Santa's Sleigh Dash" Atari-style video game. I came. I played. I killed Santa (like ran-his-sleigh-into-a-building killed him). #nailedit The miniaturized Tiffany windows with their cleverly played "New York in the 1950s" nostalgia meshed with a contemporary ode to the modern-day family (think two dads casually roasting marshmallows ﬁreside with child in tow). It was a year of connection and joy-and through a diﬀerent kind of glass. I may have had a smartphone in my hand the entire time, but I wasn't texting. I was snapping copious amounts of pictures. ('Tis what we editors do.) Windows, windows, loved them all-Happy New Year to you all! Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER http://www.DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of design:retail - January 2015

design:retail - January 2015
Contents
Editor’s Note
Show Talk
On Trend
We Love This!
Designer Picks
Innovation
How’d They Do That?
Postcard
Mingle
Have You Heard?
The Visual Eye
Searching for Steve Jobs
West Elm
Winning Windows
Birchbox
Holt Renfrew
Visual Products
Products
Backstory

design:retail - January 2015