They are the people who make designers' products look perfect. The unsung heroes of fashion are sometimes far removed from the design houses and catwalks, working in the realm of retail and confined to storefront windows.
"It's the challenge of making something designed for every day look like it would make any day special," said Wang Xiao-lan (
"The most important thing is, of course, to bring Isabelle's personal style to the fore," said Wang, whose arrangements generally go for the straightforward clothes-on-a-mannequin look. Such a style, she said, is the best way to show people the clothes without distracting them with other images. "People can pass by and imagine themselves in the outfit."
Other times, however a more radical approach is called for.
Window dressings are basically of three schools of thought. One takes a page from magazine design, literally, by blowing up the same ads found in glossy glamour rags to window size. Another is to prop up a mannequin and pull some clothes over it.
In the final school of thought, however, designers think outside the windowsill. More akin to museum installations than department store designs, these displays might include special lighting, sound, animatronics or even live models to catch the eye of a passersby.
The height of the window dressing world is making up the massive glass enclosures of upscale boutiques like Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton; making NT$80,000 handbags look like a million bucks. Of course, these brand empires don't leave their windows to chance.
Instead, the flagship store in Paris or New York will distribute materials and instructions down to the centimeter on how their window displays in the rest of world should look, putting the onus on local window dressers to execute the plans. But the thrill of landing such work is dampened by the fact that you probably can't tell your friends what you're doing.
"Sorry," said Prada and Gucci representative Sudia Huang when asked about the process behind the stores' displays. "We don't share this type of information with the media."
The glitziest of the world's glamour houses guard the ingredients that go into their displays as zealously as Colonel Sanders guarded his recipe for fried chicken. Huang said talking about design concepts or plans with anyone outside the company is grounds for dismissal. Even saying who photographs the clothes or dresses the windows is a no-no, and the freelance designers and photographers the company hires are legally sworn to secrecy.
Simon Doonan made a name for himself and ultimately landed a film deal for the rights to his book Confessions of a Window Dresser, a glass-steaming kiss-and-tell about his world-famous designs for the windows of Barney's New York department store. More than a memoir of an artist's insight into his work, the book told of working with designers such as Lagerfield, Lacroix, and Armani and of collaborating with the most notorious names in the art world: Mapplethorpe, Rauschenberg, and La-Chapelle.
While the windows of Taipei's department stores don't have the exposure of Barney's New York, the pressure on local designers is likely to increase with the expansion of the city's upscale retail real estate in the Da'an district (大安區). Here buildings of the Shinkong Mitsukoshi Department Store are going up at Sim City pace and boutiques are moving in while the paint is still wet. With the buildings looking similar the differences are accentuated by the window displays.
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