"A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight ... Walking in a winter wonderland"
What’s Christmas without festive lightings? I cannot imagine walking down the streets during “the most wonderful time of the year” without both the bright lights and the elaborate window decorations of the boutiques! The tradition of holiday display makes Christmas and whoever asserts the opposite is certainly afraid to appear as a material person and definitely not telling the truth!
In every corner of the world, this winter holiday season is announced by the appearance of festive decor in shop windows. From cloth stores to groceries, every shop makes use of Christmas ornaments to decorate their storefronts in the hope of catching customer’s attention to improve their sales during one of the busiest shopping months of the year. From the sparkle of luminescent Christmas tree baubles and blinking lights to the warm vanilla scent of traditional sweets coming out of pastries, no online boutique can ever take the place of physical shops or indeed deliver the spiritual magic of this wonderful holiday season!
I know for sure that many people out there, like me, cannot wait to visit a department store to view the festive window displays. It’s a treasured holiday tradition! For Christmas shop windows decoration is an art mastered by incredibly creative artists.
It goes without question that no one can do Christmas quite like New York City. The picturesque windows of Fifth Avenue department stores and the different themes they showcase will get you mesmerised at first sight! The unveiling of departments stores' holiday displays is a Newyorker traditional event that every year attracts thousand of people from everywhere. The unveiling is completed with shows, live performances and fireworks.
The annual Christmas tradition of decorating shop windows dates back to 1800s when Industrial Revolution and mass production of consumer goods made this holiday season the best time of the year to increase sales by maximizing the goods production. The tradition of doing presents to the loved ones to show them care had just begun. Every kind of item was advertised as a Christmas present to put by the tree ...
At the beginning of the late 19th century, large city department stores started showcasing in their displays narrative stories with different themes and everything was presented using mechanical figures. Everyone owning a shop or a grocery store realized the importance of a well decorated shop window during Christmas time to create a sort of emotional liaison between the customer and the boutique, transcending the store’s commercial significance, and encouraging spending by shoppers. Windows decorators often made use of animated figures, sparkling glazing baubles and blinking lights to drum up holiday cheers and convey the spirit of the season to pedestrians.
There were other reasons that these holiday window displays became popular. One was because of improvements in the making of plate glass; by 1900, large sheets of plate glass could be produced and installed on the buildings’ facades.
Today, the tradition of decorating shop windows for Christmas continues and windows display unveiling is an eagerly awaited event like a Broadway performance with live shows, celebrities and fireworks. Even if we are used to see the world through the glass of our smart phones, It goes without question that the sensorial and emotional experience of looking through the glass of a shop window is irreplaceable! We will continue to gather in front of department stores fascinated by their amazing decorations. Some things will never change.