Today was a really fun day. We went to Harrods and Harvey Nichols. We all met at Harrods at 2:00. Jose was hoping to walk around and see all of the store windows but they were already covered in the process of changing them. I was disappointed we couldn't take pictures inside either store but hopefully you'll be able to picture what I'm talking about.
I didn't know much about Harrods so I was trying to get a feel for where it fits on the scale of large department stores. I'm not sure if it was the men at each entrance dressed in green outfits holding the doors open or the Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Range Rovers, and Mercedes parked at the curb but I could tell this was a high end store. We all went inside and walked around. You could tell from the moment you entered this store was luxury, luxury, luxury. The architecture was very ornate and decorative. There was also tons of marble. My favorite part of the store was the Egyptian escalator. It's so detailed and I can see why it's an attraction. I also liked seeing the memorial of Diana and Dodi downstairs at the bottom of the escalator.
We walked through the rest of the store and saw many elements of design on our tour.
In one of the food rooms we walked through, there were tiles in lines at the top of the walls. They were all different colors and so pretty.
In the women's designer clothing section, it's evident that everything is very spaced out and not clustered. It's so organized. Most often there would be only one of each kind of garment hanging on the rack. This made it so easy to see the merchandise.
In the jewelry section, there were counters that were in the shape of an "s". Their form was so unique that it made it fun to shop. The customer would have to follow the "s" to view the jewelry.
The Egyptian room was my favorite example of texture. The pictures/sketches on the walls and columns and the statues made the Egyptian theme so real.
The best distinction of color was between the women's sections and the men's sections. The men's section was dark and masculine. The fixtures were rough and mostly wooden. The women's was bright and feminine. The fixtures were often shiny.
Harvey Nichols was also really fun to see. We were disappointed that their windows were also in the process of being changed. However, it was exciting to see a woman starting to construct the new window display. As we were passing, Raul even saw a box leaning up against the window that said the new scheme was Olympic Movement.
As we walked through the store, we saw many different principles of design used in visual merchandising. My favorite section to walk through was the contemporary clothing. They were all the clothes we were familiar with.
We found unity like fabric displayed together - heavy sweaters and coats were together whereas tank tops and flowy shirts were together.
There was variety in each section through the different colors, patterns, and sizes.
The display tables were balanced when you could see merchandise through the glass countertop and when there were also objects on top of the counter on either end displaying merchandise as well.
Rhythm was shown when clothes were displayed according to color and flowed around the color wheel.
There was emphasis when there were three mannequins but the middle one was in front of the other two (making a triangle).
There were displays at each floor where the escalators go up and down. At one of them, there was a normal sized mannequin and a small British telephone booth. This was the best example of proportion I could find in the store.
Anna Marie and I found a section with large coconuts on the ground as part of the display. This was a use of scale.
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