Elaborate holiday displays in department store windows are a time-honored tradition, but with retailers more anxious than ever about holiday sales, luring customers with those displays has become vital to fourth-quarter business. Here's a look at 10 New York holiday windows that ditched modest mannequins in favor of genuine experiential marketing.
Holiday vignettes at Bloomingdale's
Photo: Alison Whittington for BizBash
Barneys New York creative director Simon Doonan built this year's windows around famous Saturday Night Live sketches, and the store hosted current cast members at a November unveiling party.
Photo: Alison Whittington for BizBash
A window at the Bergdorf Goodman men's store shows a holiday dinner with figures used in Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Photo: Alison Whittington for BizBash
Above the window displays at Saks Fifth Avenue, which uses velvet ropes to control the gawkers, the facade of the building is covered with illuminated snowflakes that pulse to "The Carol of the Bells" when it's dark outside.
Photo: Courtesy of Saks Fifth Avenue
Lord & Taylor constructed Victorian gingerbread villages for the windows of its Fifth Avenue flagship.
Photo: Alison Whittington for BizBash
Not beholden to a particular theme, the Bloomingdale's windows draw from all facets of pop culture with Christmas scenes, superheroes, and the first family.
Photo: Alison Whittington for BizBash
One of this year's windows at Macy's includes interactive touch screens so customers can craft letters and wish lists for Santa.
Photo: Alison Whittington for BizBash
Bloomingdale's allots several of its windows to participating brands, like this one for Louis Vuitton.
Photo: Alison Whittington for BizBash
Anthropologie's Rockefeller Plaza flagship chose a snow theme, depicting storms with different white recyclables in each of its windows.
Photo: Alison Whittington for BizBash
ABC Carpet and Home has several displays of elaborate holiday decor.
Photo: Alison Whittington for BizBash
To capitalize on the voyeurs crowding to neighboring department stores, smaller Fifth Avenue retailers such as Juicy Couture also sport elaborate vignettes.
Photo: Alison Whittington for BizBash
