Clever Capitalist Christmas Windows Trick

Lavelle Olexa, senior vp, advertising, sales promotion, public relations and Fifth Avenue windows for Lord & Taylor (New York), has been interviewed by Vladimir Pozner, Russia's most celebrated journalist, and Ivan Urgant, a leading Russian television personality.

The interview, which touched on different aspects of American Christmas traditions in retail, from special promotions and events to Black Friday, will appear in a documentary film, ”America, One Story High,” to be aired in Russia's Channel One.

The documentary project is based on the novel, “Little Golden America (One Storied America),” written in 1935 by Russian writers Ilya Ilf and Eugene Petrov, who traveled across the United States. Pozner And Urgant are filming a new version of the journey to update the experience and portray present-day America.

The journalists have met with prominent Americans (as Ilf and Petrov did 70 years ago), including Ted Turner, Marlo Thomas and Bill Gates, politicians, public activists and scientists.

The final part of the documentary is dedicated to Thanksgiving and Christmas. As the original pair did in 1935, Pozner and Urgant celebrated Thanksgiving with an American family, this time one of Russian immigrants, and went Christmas shopping in New York, visiting Lord & Taylor's legendary holiday windows. Olexa presented the Russians with copies of the Chuck Fischer pop-up book, “Christmas in New York,” in which several decades of Lord & Taylor's Fifth Avenue windows are prominently showcased.