I know, I know, this is ridiculously late but there was no way I was going to let these pictures sit away in my computer’s hard drive and never see the light of day – well, the light of my blog. I took these pictures just before Christmas and even though I didn’t find the time to share them then I’m taking the ‘It’s never too late’ approach, since I not only photographed Liberty’s window displays but also Harvey Nichols’, Selfridges’ and Harrods’ displays. They will all be getting their own post and I am starting with my least favourite – I don’t mean to be negative but I might as well save the best for last!
Unfortunately, I found Liberty extremely underwhelming this year. Less can definitely be more but on this occasion less resulted in a little boring. Yes, there may have been lots of cleverly displayed bits and bobs here and there, making it seem like there was a lot going on. But to me it felt like something was missing and I couldn’t really see much of a theme – old curiosity shop meets a big bang or shooting star? You can try to make your own conclusions by the pictures…
I didn’t include all of the photographs that I took because it all looked the same and it made me want to hit the snooze button. Also, I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of mannequins as such but I was really surprised to see just two mannequins in the whole window display – it actually made me wonder “Where are all the mannequins?” Wouldn’t it have made sense to have a mannequin in every window? I felt the second mannequin that I photographed looked amazing – the styling was really strong and simply awesome. Why weren’t there more like her?
The (many) objects used were a mixture of pretty, cute, kitsch and fun – what’s not to love about flamingos, parrots and rubber ducks – but ultimately, the overall effect was not wow. I hate to be critical about these kinds of things because art and visual merchandising are so subjective and in all honesty, I probably wouldn’t have done a better job myself. But this is Liberty we are talking about, possibly one of the most famous shops in the world, and if anyone should go all out it should be them. I don’t feel they went all out and, most importantly, this wouldn’t make me want to go into Liberty.
Harsh much? I’m being honest. So why include a window display I’m not crazy about? It’s always interesting to compare the big fish and you will understand why I was underwhelmed by this window display once I post about Harrods and Selfridges!
P.S.: Maybe I should have watched Channel 4’s Liberty of London documentary (which focuses on the shop preparing for Christmas) before writing this post – and I might have had an insight to what they were thinking when they came up with this display. I doubt that would make me like it though…
