Fashion capitals show off Christmas windows

This is the last in a four-part monthly series on trends by trend-watcher Interfashion

Planning. — ED.

By Victoria Kim

At this time of year, famous overseas department stores are hugely popular with foreign tourists and local people alike. People are amazed by the luxuriously decorated shop windows. Of course, this landscape is not just to catch the eyes of the consumer, but it is a carefully planned strategy.

The department stores’ window displays are a method to differentiate their quality and concepts. Fashion industry experts often look at how particular department stores do their PR, and how new products in the stores or windows are displayed.

How do Korea's major department stores decorate for the big holiday season? It is not difficult and it’s a level that everyone can see. They either decorate with luxury designs or simple Christmas tree decorations.

So how do we get insight into window display design? Perhaps looking to other displays such as England’s Harrods, New York’s Macy's, or Bergdorf Goodman and Printemps in Paris is the best method.

Most foreign department stores have a strict purchasing structure for products. There is a system where merchandise planners and buyers can sell and buy brands after carefully examining designs, concepts, philosophies and prices. Domestic department stores are quite different and use a fee structure based on commissions. Because of this different structure, each brand can manage product inventory and pay a fee to the department store in charge, but as a marketing strategy or marketing method, overseas department stores’ buyers take responsibility to display their products. Of course, the brand display strategy is laid on top of the main strategies to be established with a department store.

Department stores using a foreign system have distinct concepts and forms among their competitors. If you are a regular customer, it is possible to identify the department store only by seeing its displays. Because each of the stores have a different philosophy, product structure and identity, often there is no need to compete for the same customer.

Also, cultural identity plays a part. Thanksgiving, Christmas and Halloween are times for celebrating with family, neighbors and friends. Therefore, department stores do their best to serve different concepts and colorful decorations with humor. In the Saks Fifth Avenue of New York last year, the store used the yeti character as its centerpiece. Now in December the character of the Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood was used, wearing all kinds of luxury brands. The department store window displays, as well as the design of the interior space has evolved as an essential strategy based on a unique concept of a department.

A buyer in an overseas department store revealed that she took a one-year training course just to understand the history and culture of the store. Department stores are a symbol of the street. If a department store can add its own ideas and dreams and expose empathy to the consumer, its expression will be much more beautiful.