Store Design and Visual Merchandising - #9

Today for class, we walked around a new part of London that we hadn't been to yet! We all met on King's Road for our walk. We walked all down that road and looked at all of the shops. There were some chains but a lot of boutiques. I found that there were a lot of shoe boutiques. There was a Gap, which is a worldwide chain, and there was also Monsoon, which is exclusive to Europe. One thing they all had in common was that were small.

Then we took a walk down Sloane Street. It was definitely more high end and luxurious. Most of the displays were simplistic but the fixtures were expensive. Their windows usually only displayed a few pieces of merchandise and accessories were very common. One store that strongly exemplified this was Fendi. They displayed only two handbags in their windows and the organization was very simplistic using the outline of stacked boxes. The store Hackett heavily emphasized accessories. Their mannequins were dressed in suits but each one almost had a personality because of the accessories they were wearing. One was wearing glasses and one was carrying a briefcase, etc.

We saw co-advertising in the Smythson window. They partnered with a lighting company, whom displayed "jellyfish" lamps in the window.

Chloe only focused on two outfits in a staged design. The store was very open because the outer wall was all windows. The accessories were at the front of the store and handbags were the first things you could see by looking in.

Prada used a variety of colors and they also focused on accessories. They displayed only one outfit and accessorized the outfit, as well.

Dior's windows were simplistic but emphasized the outfit very well. The background indicated that the mannequin could have been at an elegant event. The outfit was also accessorized.

Versace's windows were not like the other stores in this area. As a group, we decided we didn't like them. They were too bold and busy. They didn't look classy and were described as tacky. 

Mu absolute favorite was Gucci. They had a giant paper purse in their windows. They had the actual purse to the left of it. I thought this was a unique way of focusing on accessories.