Why Not PINK Friday??

Someone please explain to me WHY!!?? anyone would put themselves through staying up all night circling parking lots, standing in line in the bitter cold, getting stomped on and smooshed by crowds just to be a part of Black Friday??  No wonder they call it Black Friday--it is miserable out there.  Attention Shoppers!!!  Trust me...There will be LOTS of Bargains AFTER Black Friday!  If you do really insist on venturing out there then at least skip the Black in Black Friday and go do it in PINK!

Not to be a Pink Grinch but the Holidays can get zooey enough so do it differently this year--Breathe and take it in yummy bites---Step 1 to Black Friday recovery...put your Bunny Slippers on, curl up, and make it Pink Friday!!  YES!  You need PINK this time of year...Shop Pink, Give Pink, Wrap Pink!!

I believe that PINK can get you through anything...even the Holidays!!  So let's Paint it Pink...

Here are some ideas to get you to Think Pink this season!!  Have a Very Happy Pink Friday!!

Tiffany

Women for Women at Kate Spade

Mark Davis

Miss Dior Cherie-Sephora

Tiffany

Mally Beauty-Bendels

Murfee Scarf-Lily Pulitzer

Uggs

Garnet Hill

Kate Spade

Gorsuch

Fracas-Neiman Marcus

Bendels

Paper Source

Uggs

Gorsuch

Jack Rogers

White Flower Farm

Window Shopping-Holiday Windows 2009

Bergdorf Goodman

Presents are not the only boxes we open this time of year. I think everyone has boxes filled with memories that sit on the shelves in our heads waiting for us to reach for them during this season.

Lord and Taylor


Sometimes a house all lit and twinkling will open the boxes, or the smell of cookies cooling on a rack or the sound of a favorite carol. For me, no surprise, it is the decoration, style and design of the holidays-- frosty white ornaments, white branches and teeny white lights on everything! Some of my favorite memories that arrive special delivery this time of year are the sights and sounds of holiday store windows.

Bergdorf Goodman

Perhaps because I was fortunate to grow up in a time without the consistent barrage of noise and texting and video games and get it now technology, that I treasure the memory of the joy and wonder of seeing a simple window come to life in a magical way...probably no big deal to kids of the new millennium but I hope they still can still be enchanted.

Macy's


Holiday windows of course are not just for kids, especially in New York where the "competition" between stores can get serious! with each store taking on a theme or story for its Holiday Display-Here are some worth peering into... Happy Window Shopping!

For Holiday 2009 Barneys Celebrates 35 years of Saturday Night Live with its "Have a Witty Christmas" Windows

At Bergdorfs, always my favorite! the mood is all about an Elegant Fantasy

The windows at Bloomingdale's present Dynamic Duos-The Claus Couple, the Obamas, Batman and Robin...

Lord and Taylor's windows show off Sparkle with some Frosting from Swarovski

Of course everyone waits for the Windows at Macys -the Grandaddy of holiday windows wants you to Believe! as it displays the magic behind the scenes at the North Pole

Losing their Stripes-Henri Bendel Closes their Closet Door

Of all the indicators of the economic times we are living through perhaps the most interesting to observe is what is happening in retailing. As the stock markets begins to rebound ever so slowly we all know there is a long way to go, but to think we will ever return to "normal" is foolish. The "norm" was never healthy and it is time to change how we spend and how we shop...Did the world really need a Gap on ever block? To see Mall stores fold is sad for the people who lose their jobs,but for those of us who have a romantic notion of retailing there is no loss in store after store after store of "the same".

Shopping was once a joy, a special time shared with good friends or your Mom. We all have memories of shopping for our first party dress, our first pair of heels, our grown-up occasion outfit, our first love of a handbag. Shopping is no longer a collection of special memories but a blur of shopping bags filled with things we don't remember buying.

It is sad to watch the great stores, the stores that invented American retailing and that have been a part of building special memories for generations disappear. In Boston they are all gone. This week yet another retail legend Henri Bendel added to the shift that retailing is going through by their announcement that they will no longer carry luxury clothing and instead will focus on accessories and cosmetics. Henri Bendel owned by the Limited Group is not what it once was, the store that offered hats and gowns and was the first to introduce Coco Chanel to America. The name,however, still has a place of style and to see a 114 year old retail brand dilute its history is another door shut. What would Mr. Bendel think about all of this?

With the decision to no longer sell clothes but to focus on accessories and cosmetics while opening accessory only stores, Bendel's is making a move that feels like the beginning of the end for the 114 year old department store, but is it? Certainly the change in business model is symptomatic of what every retailer is facing. The move however is an interesting one and tells us more about this economy and the dramatic change in spending ---while aisles of designer wardrobes are quiet and you can roll a bowling ball up the rows of Prada and Missoni accessory sales and cosmetic sales are up, significantly. Women may not spend thousands on Prada but they will buy barrettes and headbands and a new lipstick-easy purchases that can add up to as much as that St. John skirt but have more mileage.

Bendel's, a name as well known for its brown and white stripes has its iconic place amongst the best in retail department stores-alongside Saks,Bergdorf Goodman and Harvey Nichols. The new path for Bendel's ,however, is about trends not tradition...dressing up what you already own or what you bought for a lot less at stores like H&M and Target.

The change may shock some but Bendel's has been moving toward a young Bendel Girl focus for some time...their website is all about bangles and Bendel bags. Bendel's is branding itself as a "Girl's Playground for Trendsetting Young Women Around the World". Bendel's barrettes and bangles are featured on Gossip Girls and they have teamed with Elle to sell a line of young and trendy accessories.

It is sad to think that the name Henri Bendel will no longer mean a glamorous age and that the brand will be diluted along with its name and its history- now just a bangle and a headband. Promise me Henri Bendel that you will not lose all your stripes...the brown and white stripe travel bags that Mr. Bendel created over 100 years ago for his ocean liner traveling clients would be missed by this girl for her row boat rides!

Window Shopping

Santa too is in search of Holiday Spirit..Selfridge's London

Oh how I love to window shop! If you don't go into the store you have a better chance of not spending anything! OK you can go on-line but ... This Holiday Season perhaps more than any other in many years we are all simply Window Shoppers. If you "need a little Christmas, right this very minute" but you know that your credit card has been locked in the deep freeze why not just press your nose against the glass and soak in some Holiday style.

If you are a Shopper then beautiful store windows are your museum exhibits-no entrance fee required! Holiday store windows are probably how many of us became SHOPPERS. We bundled up and strolled mitten to mitten along downtown streets sparkling with lights and animated dolls, teddy bears and trains. The windows captured our imagination and filled our heads with dreams. Visiting department store window displays also became a tradition of family holidays and a signature of American retailing.

Our memories may have made those windows more special than perhaps they were but it seems as if window designers have tried each season to capture the nostalgia and reach for our heartstrings. Window displays I feel are an art. You need to grab passersby, make them stop and most especially entice them to want to visit inside and shop! all while creating an expression of style.

Bergdorf Goodman

Shopping has changed so much, there are fewer and fewer downtown areas and "click and ship" is the way we cross off our lists. I know it is not very "green" but I still love shopping bags!!

So many stores we relied on, stores that were part of our lives forever, stores that we marked special occasions with, are now gone and of course there is the very real fear that so many more will go in 2009. In Boston we don't have a downtown shopping district to show off any longer...the cornerstones of Boston retailing are no longer. Filene's and Jordan Marsh have been replaced with Macys and that sadly is it. You need to travel along Boylston, Newbury and Charles streets,where the stores are wonderful, to find some fun window shopping, but there is no longer a Department Store with a capital D that you get celebrate the season with...Saks and Lord and Taylor and Neiman's and even Nordstrom's and Bloomingdales are close by but they are anchor stores or are encased in malls. Not a lot of windows to admire-elegant,snowflakes, ornaments, white and silver...but nothing really new, fun or imaginative and nothing that I would consider an Event to go and visit.

Saks NYC

That leaves the capital of American shopping, New York City, to show off a shopper's Christmas. For this year anyway some of the pillars of traditional department store retailing are still there to comfort us...we don't know who will be here to brighten the holidays next year, though I cannot imagine Christmas without Saks, Lord and Taylor, Macys, Bendel's, Bergdorfs, Tiffanys...Let's not think about it!

Bendel's

This year Macy's, the Granddaddy of holiday windows as they have been doing it since 1862 so they should know how, has tried once again to out do them all while celebrating the Wonder of the season. For 2008 Macy's goes "behind the scenes" to find how all that Christmas Magic is created...
Where do the snowflakes come from??...It is a busy scene with touch screen technology to find how the Wonderosity happens .

Lord and Taylor has gone once again for the warm and fuzzy. Traditional Christmas, ice skates and hot chocolate and scenes of Christmas in the moment,
albeit a Victorian moment, with favorites like the Nutcracker and snow globes and A Christmas Carol in the mix.

Bloomingdale's has designed simply wonderful windows reminiscent of pop-up books and nostalgic greeting cards reflecting the 1950's and 60's almost a "Dick and Jane" style.

Inspired by Tony Bennett's new holiday CD A Swingin' Christmas
the windows are a bit kitchy but filled with fabulous detail...
I cannot help but think of Mad Menand am reminded how truly different America "looks" today.

On to Saks Fifth Avenue...love Christmas at Saks... along with their fashion windows celebrating Swarovski

Saks has windows featuring their new children's holiday book by Mike Reiss, A Flake like Mike, with proceeds going to St. Jude's Hospital.

Bergdorf Goodman, often the first store I run to in NY, obviously isn't reading the newspapers or watching CNN this year. Their windows miss the warm and cheer but are each a work of art. Although they may in fact be my favorites there isn't a Teddy Bear or Ice Skate in view. Inspired by a Calendar Girl theme where each window depicts a seasonal muse with a Winter White reflection.

Bergdorf's windows makes you stop, look and think as they feature gorgeous white fashion ...Stunning! but Holiday 2008 is ushering in a new world and though I love these windows I am not sure they are not in touch with the mood... but maybe Bergdorf's is staying above all the bad news this year!

Barney's on the other hand goes back to maybe not simpler time but certainly another era of change, the 60s. They also chose to look back with the 50th anniversary of the peace symbol
(see Political Woman) for its theme-Have a Hippie Holiday!

Put your mittens on, take a stroll and Window Shop!!!