Bergdorf’s Holiday Windows Present a Lavish, Fanciful View of Fifth Avenue
As it does each year, Bergdorf Goodman has again created some of New York City’s most lavish holiday windows — and it’s really a production that begins almost a year in advance.
Bergdorf’s determines the holiday window concept by February and the designing begins in earnest by April, according to David Hoey, the luxury emporium’s senior director of visual presentation.
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“It’s a very incremental process. It’s layer upon layer,” said Hoey. “This year our spin in the windows is a celebration of the 200th anniversary of Fifth Avenue. We have five big windows, and every window concentrates on a different aspect of Fifth Avenue — be it the landmarks, the shopping, the taxi cabs, the scaffolding, or the parks, like Central Park and Marcus Garvey Park, or the wildlife.
“We researched the flora and fauna and we let the artists go wild with it,” said Hoey.
One window has a 10-foot-tall praying mantis covered in rhinestones, among what’s really a flourish of oversize birds, butterflies and bugs. There’s also an “amazing” mixed media giant squirrel, and one window features a collage of taxi cab parts — the doors, hoods and hubcaps, in a “starburst design with an LED light show overlay,” Hoey said.
Another window is an homage to the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, depicting its iconic lion statues, stylized typewriters, busts of Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Shakespeare and other famous authors, along with a 7-foot mosaic fountain pen.
Of course, Bergdorf’s, located on Fifth Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets, is not left out of the presentation.
For the windows, Bergdorf’s taps the talents of fine artists, commercial artists, craftspeople and visual experts to create anew and also pull from Bergdorf’s warehouse, which is filled with artwork and props, among other items from the past that in some cases get restyled for the next batch of holiday windows. Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, Valentino, Thom Browne, Grace Ling, Prabal Gurung and other designers are featured in the men’s and women’s stores’ windows.
“We like to deliberately overstuff the windows,” said Hoey. “People expect to find new things they didn’t see the first few times around. Between all of our windows, it’s like a walking tour of Fifth Avenue.”
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