I have been reading a wonderful book recently: Show Windows. 75 Years of the Art of Display by Barry James Wood. There are some amazing images of shop window display from the 1930s through to the 1970s (and I may treat you to some of the 1970s windows at a later date) but I thought I would single out the 1950s today. From top to bottom... above we have Jim Buckley for Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills; and next below is another by Jim Buckley for Sacks Fifth Avenue this time in Detroit, a riff on the idea of 'Toiletries' and yes, that's a bottle of Chanel hanging in the tree; The Gene Moore design for Bonwit Teller in New York with a beautiful woman caught behind a web resulted in loads of calls from model agencies wanting to know who the woman was, "she's gone back to Sweden" is what he told them, to cover the fact that is it is actually a man in drag; Warren McCurtain demonstrates just how elegant one can be with a roll of cellophane; and the last is actually from 1949, again by Gene Moore for Bonwit Teller in New York and who can resist a design in which a woman loves hats so much she has to grow an extra head to wear them!
