HOLIDAY WINDOWS

Continuing down our path of the lovely holiday windows on our second day, they didn't disappoint either. When you get down to it. it's amazing the detail that can fit into these small spaces. Every year, another company that always pleases me is the legendary Tiffany & Co. They have some of the most creative windows for such the smallest of spaces, and I'm here to tell you, jewelry is one of the hardest and most challenging to display. And they always bring it. We even started out with breakfast at Tiffany's!!!

This Tiffany-blue display will certainly dazzle any passerby on Fifth Avenue. The brand's display tells a story about the main protagonist Tiffany's silver doll, of course, in a delightful and charming way. This year's theme is "Believe in Dreams," which takes onlookers behind the scenes of a whimsical Tiffany workshop.

Rock candy..get it? Genius.

Meanwhile at Saks Fifth Avenue....

After years of catering to children with one storybook tale after another, Saks goes after its true demographic: ladies who shop. The loosey-goosey plot revolves around a young woman with a poodle and stars in her eyes, whose love of the theater is nearly eclipsed by her passion for shoes, spa treatments and everything else money can buy, especially in Saks. That said, the windows are a dazzling mix of color and couture, with enough velvet curtains for a David Lynch fever dream. The edgier windows along 49th Street, which have a sexier story to tell. One features a couple canoodling above the stage, another has a man in a corset. And those hunky men outside the stage door seem to be waiting for something more than an autograph. wink!

 Over at Barneys. was a penny for your thoughts! How about 40,000 of them, pasted onto a white backdrop? That’s what’s doing in Barneys’ windows this year, although you’ll have to peer through the cutouts that spell “make change” to see them.

 The pennies (all $400 of them) are part of a partnership with Save the Children. (Barneys’ texting campaign promises another $150,000.) My team and I's inner Scrooge says, “Worthy cause, but lousy windows.....but we didn’t see a single passerby give the display a second glance. Come back, Simon Doonan! You may well be “creative ambassador at large,” but the windows need you here!

And sadly....the legend and long time store that started all the holiday window magic spectacle, and the first to do the holiday windows... is another dear company shuttering this year, Lord & Taylor. The brand’s 2017 windows which were titled “The Best and the Brightest,” spotlighted unique scenes through the lens of a snow globe. Sadly, that was the retailer's last extravagant display. After 104 years in business, Lord & Taylor is closing and will transform into a WeWork space in 2019.That’s right, no more beautiful Christmas-window arrangements. No more gorgeous displays of fashion to gawk at. No more old-school shopping for presents at the iconic store on it's 10 floors. It was a sad thing to see.

Windows are papered up already and literally everything was for sale!

It’s a sad day, with B.Altman's, Bonwit Tellers closing in the late 80's and now this year with Henri Bendels and Lord & Taylor...and now I just heard the fantastic Gumps in San Francisco of 157 years is now closing. But as the saying goes: Sic transit gloria mundi — so passes worldly glory, and the like we will never see again.