Anthropologie Week – Day 1

It only seems appropriate to start my gush-fest over the creative powerhouse that is the visual merchandising team at Anthropologie (NYC) with the window displays.  I am amazed and blown away every time I pass one of their stores, the attention to detail and high level of creativity and creative execution is always stellar!  No Joke.

During the holiday season (aka: Christmas time) there was a winter wonderland of yarn squirrels, owls, Balsams and fir trees, amazing.  All made of yarn, knitted, twisted, sculpted you name it, it was great.  Today as I passed by there were dresses made of zippers, laundry tickets and other non-conventional materials.  A Project Runway-esque “fashion from everyday items” installation.  I guess what I love beyond the creative fabulosity of the hand-made fantasy fashions is the fact that Anthropologie would rather sell the idea of creativity and fantasy in their windows than the latest cotton dress for 79.99… I don’t know about you but I buy into the vibe and creative marketing hook, line and sinker.  I couldn’t resist going in and its a store for women.

So I went in, and that’s when I decided to blog about the store, its merchandise, all the creative treasures and the store itself architecture, fixtures, etc.   A snap-shot with my iPhone turned into two, five, a dozen… I was shooting everything from light fixtures to jewelry and then it struck me, I have to do a weeks worth of blogs on this one great store… And so we begin, back to the windows and the dresses…  Can you believe the bodice and rosettes on this dress are all zippers? I’m not even sure what the materials that make up the skirt are to be honest, paper, wallpaper, fabric?  but I can tell you that the hems all had zipper edges and the pleated dark mauve overskirt flowed over the window walls and into the store.  A store window to rival any Broadway set, *art really…magical!

*I have and have always had a lot of energy around art vs craft and how talent and the choice of how one person decides to express themselves.  To me this is art.  I don’t care that there might not be a deeper meaning, or that it was created with the intent to bring people into a retail establishment, there is a human hand behind this work, it’s beautiful, I can and did get lost in it and it clearly took some serious artistic talent.  ART I say!