Pictures Of Window Displays

WGSN Research

WGSN has retail and visual merchandising section on their website , this provides information and pictures on the best practices of VM and the inspiration and innovation behind them. It provides the latest images of different types of visual merchandising from perfume, cosmetics, fashion and interior.

(This is a print screen shoot of the home page to WGSN when clicking on the retail and VM heading. )

Some example of visual merchandising from WGSN

TED BAKERS SWEET SHOP

Researching Visual Merchandising

MILLINGTON ASSOCIATES

http://www.millingtonassociates.com/

I found this company when conducting my research on the internet. It's one

of the Uk's leading professional visual merchandising experts. They offer a full unique in store advertising solutions designed to capture the essence of business advertising needs.

They have worked with many company's and clients from high street fashion stores to interior design and high end designers ranging from lower market brands to high for example Next, Nike, Newlook to Hugoboss, Jaeger and Jigsaw. Designers they have worked with include Mulberry, Burberry and Austin Reed just to name a view.

EXAMPLES OF THEIR WORK

( Stella McCartney Autumn 2010 - kid friendly couture)

This store display was designed for Stella McCartney's first children's wear collection. They took inspiration from the campaign imagery of children interacting with cut out shapes to design a store environment in the style of a children's pop up book

(House of Fraser Spring/Summer 2011)

Millington Associates recreated a spring flower market to launch House of Fraser SS11 season. The windows and interiors evoked a scene from a Columbia road flower market on a gorgeous sunny day.

(Habitat Christmas 2009)

Millington Associates where commissioned by Habitat to design a national and international premium Christmas window scheme in line with their Christmas champaign.

( Next Christmas 2010- window wonderland)

Millingtons worked closely with Next to design their 2010 Christmas scheme, this was distributed to over 3000 windows UK wide.

Visual Merchandising

Visual merchandising is the activity and profession of developing floor plans and three dimensional displays in windows and in stores in order to maximise sales. the purpose of visual merchandising is to attract, engage and motivate the customer towards making a purchase.

PURPOSE

The main purpose of visual merchandising is to make it easier for the customer to locate the desired category and merchandise, make it possible for the customer to coordinate and accessories and to highlight highlight particular product at strategic locations.

BRIEF HISTORY

Years ago it wasn't uncommon for store owners to display their products on tables in front of their store to lure in customers. Store windows where small back then and glass was not a easily available product. This all changed in 1840's when glass became mass produced.

The evolution in store design brought about a new process of shopping. It was no longer a verbal engagement between retailers and customers but now a sensory experience. The first step occurred when small stores began to display their merchandise openly to the public. eventually the deliberate displaying of goods became an important tool for retailers.

(first Selfridges opened March 1909)

The rise of department stores in the 19th century bought more changes in store design and visual displays. The early department stores continued with the idea of displaying merchandise in elaborate and luxury settings.

(Window display in Selfrigdes)