Summer holidays start at Accessorize

The visual merchandise team at Accessorize have got enviously summery displays up at the moment. Chandlers think they are right on trend and tap into a nostalgia for archaic retro machinery, particularlly cameras that many of us will remember growing up with. The holidays not only start with packing your bags, but also getting sunglasses and film for your camera (for those of us who are oldschool!) So the cameras are the perfect  device that not only conjure up fond memories from previous holidays, but echoes the shape of the handbags on display.

Braving the Elements

Rob from 2 Seasons Bristol store told me about the Billabong style that is down to earth and laid back, using elements from nature in the shop displays, letting the products do the showing off. Many of the products being for ski, skate and surf, the displays reference the great outdoors in imaginative ways.

I also really liked the postcards hanging out in the womenswear section by artists and illustrators which epitomize a youthful and iconic look. Carefully crafted they have detailed lines with splashes of colour and loose free watercolour brush strokes. Particularly like the lazer eyed wolf hound slumped casually on a levitating outcrop of rock and the Kate Bush Ruffles and pleated hairstyle, though wish the girl wasn't so melancholy, chin up luv, its International Women's day, just look at the wolf that should make you smile.

Artist: Sarah Labnach 2012

Artist: Kareena           Artist: Courtney Brims

March Forward

Harvey Nichols have added to last Month's feel good display with Lightning bolt speed. Here is what's new...

 

Feel it February with Harvey Nichols Windows

The Harvey Nichols Windows this freezing February are working hard to brighten up your day.  Looking more like an art exhibition than a window display, they would not be out of place in the White Cube or Sadie Coles and could believably have been the fostered brainchild of an art collaboration between Michael Craig Martin, Boo Ritson and Dan Flavin.

I saw the artist setting it up, tweaking the lights that were glowing luminously around the cyborg characters in the windows and tinkering away until it looked just right. The mannequins are unique in their Blade Runnner-esque replicant perfection.

The Label information has been artfully incorporated into the display as window texts again aligning itself to a gallery space with product info in place of informative texts. Chandlers also digs the rock and roll music aesthetic created through a combination of bright lights, hairstyles and visual motifs. These are the best dressed mannequins in town.

  

Each model has been given enough space to shine individually and there are none of the usual trappings of plinths and shelving full of merchandise, making this an indulgently minimal use of space. Chandlers Vice thinks it’s real nice.

The florescent lights are not only a backdrop helping to draw in a crowd and create an electric glow surrounding the mannequins, but also break free into 3-d drawings of large scale domestic objects such as a table lamp, a toaster and an electric guitar. The Mannequins who are very realistic except for their vibrant block colours, in orange, magenta, blue and orange are poised in energetically adding to their sense of aliveness. I don’t think I have before now had hairstyle envy from seeing a shop mannequin, but damn are they rocking those 1950’s Popadour Rockabilly Mohawk Quiffs.

To experience the electric displays in person visit Harvey Nichols, 27 Philadelphia Street
Quakers Friars
Cabot Circus
Bristol
BS1 3BZ.

About Chandlers Vice

Chandler’s Vice will spotlight a different Window Display every fortnight and include interviews and photographs getting to the ideas behind the art and capturing the fleeting presence of this Artform on the high street.