The Sears and Kmart design team wanted garden-like setting for the press preview of its new spring 2012 home collections, but rather than contend with New York's chilly and rainy end-of-year weather outdoors, the brands took the event to the pop-up park set inside Openhouse Gallery on Thursday, December 8. To play up the scenery laden with trees, flowers, and foliage, Sears and Kmart dubbed the early-morning gathering "Feather Your Nest" and added live canaries and birdhouse-shaped bed frames to the NoLIta venue. The event flaunted lines from Sofia Vergara, the Kardashian sisters, Sandra Lee, and Gordon Ramsay.
Starting at 9 a.m., Sears and Kmart invited editors to roam the site, viewing the products in various vignettes. The half-dozen female birds chirped and fluttered around freestanding cages in the front of the space, surrounded by a fountain, kites, and park benches. Further in, a long white picnic table held the brightly colored plates, cups, and linens from the Sandra by Sandra Lee, while a truck-shaped cardboard cutout marked with the Union Jack, sat adjacent to the display for Gordon Ramsay Everyday cooking utensils and appliances.
A separate room was designated to showcase the bedding from the Sofia by Sofia Vergara for Kmart and Kardashian Kollection Home for Sears collections. However, instead of just dressing mattresses, the organizers fashioned bed frames in the shape of birdhouses as a tongue-in-cheek way to add to the visuals.
Tastings NYC provided bite-size breakfast snacks for the preview, offering passed items like quails eggs and tartlets to the visiting press.
