NEXT Christmas Window Displays

This year, Next have created nostalgic window displays for their Christmas campaign. One of the most popular fashion and interior trends was heritage, using a mix or rich colours, tartan, plaid and fairisle prints with wooden and rugged textures. The stag head is also one of the iconic trends this season, which has been incorporated into their designs.

Burberry - December 2012

Burberry, Knightbridge, London.

Metallic golds and silvers seem to be one of the main trends for this Winter season, and Burberry have also adopted this look and incorporated it into their latest window displays to creative and festive visual campaign. 

The gold balloons represent gifts being delivered from the sky and has also been launched on the website. 

These window displays are only featured in flagship stores, making them relatively unique. The images below are taken from the store in Knightsbridge, London.

Mulberry - December Window Display

The heritage brand, Mulberry, which was founded in Somerset, have used the idea of blending new and old together by using metallic keys and large padlocks to show the values of their brand. This window display gives the idea of an old-world style, creating a typically British scene which has a certain charm about it. 

The display is very compelling when you walk past it, and the oversized keys and padlocks make the products on display become the main focal point, as these are strategically placed on top to show the link between old and new. The padlocks have the signature Mulberry logo engraved into them, clearly identifying their brand. 

Harvey Nichols - Christmas Window Displays

Harvey Nichols, Knightsbridge, London.

This year, Harvey Nichols have displayed Oriental inspired window displays for this year's Christmas season. The Oriental trend has been featured in the Autumn and Winter this year and is expected to be in fashion through until the Spring in 2013.
The trend has been continued through both mediums of fashion and interiors, and includes an array of bright colours and ornate and intricate patterns.

The displays feature a wide range of different objects consisting of chinese lanterns, luminescent metallic finishes and traditional Oriental materials. Embellished jewels, glitter and sparkle all encapsulate the displays and make them really stand out, even from afar.

RE:SO

A new 'pop-up' shop has been developed in an existing Listed Building in the Marlands shopping mall in Southampton.

The shop, which features handmade and re-worked clothing made by the Solent University students, has only recently opened, and the entire project was devised and set up by the students themselves.
Everything from the interior, to the logo of the shop was created in order to produce a shop that is visually successful and appealing to people of all ages.

The visual merchandising and design within the store resembles the style of well known High Street stores such as Urban Outfitters and All Saints, using the theme of distressed interiors and industrial aspects such as bare brick work, wooden flooring and factory-style lighting. This gives the shop the feel of 'ruggedness' and down to earth style, which also is reflected into its furnishings and VM decorative accessories.

The store sells many different things ranging from clothing, interior decorations, books, furnishings, and fashion accessories, all of which have been designed and/or-reworked by students.

The shop, also run by Solent students, allows other students in the fashion/photography/interior design faculties to use the store for projects they are undertaking. I have most recently used RE:SO to devise a photo shoot for my own photography project. Workshops are also held here and are extremely beneficial for those looking to work in the fashion industry.

In all, RE:SO is a great project that is gradually turning into a great profitable success which allows students to showcase their work for the general public to see. (all images are my own)

Primark Window Displays are Improving!

In London last week, I visited the new refurbished Primark store on Oxford St, and was rather pleasantly surprised at how good the window displays were. Over the past few years the company have been trying to improve their Visual Merchandising, and by the looks of it, they have put more effort into the creative teams in order to produce good displays. A friend of mine also told me its actually quite difficult to get into the VM team for Primark, so they must be doing something right!

The images I took show the A/W12 season (not great quality as loads of people like to sit on the window ledge!)

Christmas is Coming...

Turns out I caught the Louis Vuitton/Yayoi Kusama window display at Selfridges just in time, they started ripping it out the night I went! 
The Visual Merchandising team have now started to install the new displays, and now that November is slowly approaching, it can only mean one thing, Christmas!

I stumbled across this video from the Selfridges website, and the concept for their campaign is 'Not Your Usual Christmas' 

Take a look at the video here:

Selfridges 'Not Your Usual Christmas' video