The aim of this group project was to style a commercial window with the concept of colour, we weren't given any other instruction and was told that we could interpret the concept however we wanted to. For our window we wanted something fun and over the top that could be juxtaposed to the serious air of luxury the mannequins would emit through their outfits. We took inspiration from brands such as Gucci and Versace for the styling, creating extravagant and ostentatious combinations using dark colours, flowy materials, silk-like fabrics, faux leather, glitter, jewels and expertly layering them for dramatic effect.
We decided to collage the images that inspired us into a moodboard, so that we could view them all together and extract aspects from each of them to feed into the concept development. Two major themes that we found were stripes and hanging objects, we were very drawn to the idea of colour coming down from a ceiling.
After putting together our inspirations and looking back at the initial brainstorm, we came up with two possible concepts for the window. The first one involved having party streamers hanging from the ceiling in straight lines creating a sort of suspended upside-down forest look. The second was all about escape, we wanted the mannequins to interact with their surroundings, creating a laser-like effect using the streamers. Both concepts were rooted in the idea of celebration, we wanted to create a party atmosphere while subtly telling a story behind it. In the end we couldn’t decide which one we wanted to go for, so we chose to start working on the mannequins and let the choice come to us as we went along.
We choose these three mannequins to dress our window because of the dramatic poses they demonstrate, as well as the gold skin colour. For our party theme we wanted mannequins that would stand out, expressing excitement and an ability to interact with each other in addition to the story of the window itself.
Originally, we placed the mannequins in a triangular formation, with eye contact between the three, but this left strongest pose at the back of the window. Therefore, we moved this mannequin to the front and consequently dressed her in the most eye-catching pieces. We chose to move the remaining two to the back-right, placed close together as if interacting – dancing – displaying the depth of the window.
When deciding how we should dress the mannequins, we looked at the concept of a party. With the incoming Christmas period we had a lot of sources of inspiration, from articles to social media. We looked at what people in the fashion world and social influencers were doing in order to come up with ideas that followed the current trends. We decided to style a luxury party window, by using dark colours and a variety of materials to create texture. Silver and gold accessories, bags and belts were added as accents, complementing the final looks. The styling process was long as we tested a large variety of options in order to achieve the best overall result. We had to consider the challenging poses of the mannequins – whether it would be possible for them to wear the clothes and also look natural.
In the end we decided to follow the idea of placing the streamers across the window rather than hanging from the top. We used strips of crepe paper to achieve the look due to their flexibility and strength and then stapled them on the walls and floors starting from the back. We didn’t follow any particular structure while installing them, we just let ourselves go and watched as it all came to life.
