Open Season, Part II

FIRST PLACE
NON-HOLIDAY WINDOW DISPLAYS
“BOHO BIRDS”
HOLT RENFREW, TORONTO

Summer can be an unusual selling time for retailers: Between holiday sales and back-to-school season, Terran McNeely, national visual manager, Holt Renfrew (Toronto), wanted to design a window and storewide theme that would complement Holt Renfrew’s extensive mix of merchandise arrivals.

McNeely hand-drew sketches of birds and tropical foliage which were translated into vinyl and back-wall images for the displays. “We built out the images so we had actual fake foliage coming out of the illustrations,” he says. “We took it a step farther and actually transformed the mannequins into birds.”

The in-house design team created each mannequin’s feathered headdress, painstakingly put together piece by piece. And to enhance the avian theme, mannequins were suspended to appear as if they were flying, while others moved using mechanized systems.

“They were perched on top of tree branches in some situations, but they still remained relatively simplistic in their composition, which in my opinion, always makes the strongest windows,” McNeely says. 

“The color throughout is complementary to the product,” said competition judge Lynn Gonsior, partner of Dayton, Ohio-based ChangeUp Inc. “There’s a romantic quality to it.”

Read more about the 22nd annual Visual Competition winners featured in VMSD's July 2016 issue by clicking here, and be sure to check vmsd.com throughout the month of July for parts III-V of this Visual Competition coverage.

Click here to read about the Best in Show winner.