vip in the city

Bergdorf’s Art of Celebrating

200th post!

Bergdorf Goodman’s gorgeous, highly stylized windows. For sheer richness and attention to detail, these are probably my favorite of all. The displays are each titled with a one-word caption, evoking themes of the holiday season.

“Recollect” is a cool study in black and white, with twin mannequins, posed amidst an eye-popping assortment of vintage objects: silver-framed photographs, porcelain terriers, typewriters, cameras, and antique memorabilia. “Decorate” is an intricately ornate brown and white tableau, crammed impossibly full of iced gingerbread houses, layered cakes and candied confections. The most whimsical: “Entertain,” features a white fur clad woman opening the door to a black-bowtied polar bear suitor as ice penguins glitter among the faux icicles.

New York magazine gave Bergdorf’s display high marks for “childlike wonder” and set design, but gave the slight overall edge to the Saks windows for more effectively evoking holiday cheer.

The UNICEF Snowflake, sparkling at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. Its twin hangs at the corner of Rodeo Drive and Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Ingo Maurer and his German design team handcrafted the 3,300 pound chandelier out of 16,000 Baccarat crystal prisms.