So much holiday dazzle, so little time. If you’re visiting New York City, or you’re a citizen of Greater Gotham who loves the holidays but has very little leisure time, where’s the best place to go to see the most beautiful, humorous, sparkling, and memorable holiday store windows this year? No worries – we here at Dandelion Chandelier have braved the sidewalks full of people, the chilly night air and the fragrance of roasting chestnuts – smartphone in hand – to find the best of the retail displays this year. If you have only a little time for holiday tradition, here are the stops in midtown that are guaranteed to bring a micro-burst of joy.
For our money, the best of breed for 2017 is Bergdorf Goodman. The luxurious department store hits all the right notes: over-the-top installations like nothing you’ll see anywhere else; notes of fantasy and humor but also some stunning clothes to dream over; and a philanthropic element that reminds all of us that now more than ever there are many institutions in the city that need our patronage and our charitable dollars.
The Bergdorf’s windows feature fantastical visuals in homage to seven iconic and emerging New York not-for-profit institutions. In partnership with Bergdorf’s, each organization has created custom products and experiences that will be exclusively available at the store or on its website. Ten percent of the retail price of all items purchased – and 100% of the proceeds from any experience purchased – will be donated to the corresponding institution. The seven are the New York Historical Society; the American Museum of Natural History; the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM); the New York Philharmonic; the Museum of the Moving Image; Urban Glass; and the New York Botanical Garden. What a splendid way to celebrate the joys of living in the city and remind us that we have to do our part to keep these institutions thriving. Plus there’s a window with a tribute to Rihanna! We don’t even know why it’s there. We just love it.
We also love the whimsical joy of the windows of Tiffany & Co: while the color palette is far less varied than its neighbor across the street (strictly Tiffany’s blue, white and silver), the luxury jewelers’ sense of humor is even more pronounced, and the iconic diamonds are on full display and stunningly beautiful. Each window showcases a small silver figure busy with holiday pursuits: moving boxes, fishing for diamonds – their tiny blue scarfs whirling in the winter wind. The vignettes are dreamy and charming, and we’d happily have breakfast in front of these windows all month long.
A few blocks down Fifth Avenue, high jeweler Cartier also establishes an urbane, light-hearted mood in the windows of its elegant mansion. The color scheme is Cartier red, black and gold. Similar to Tiffany’s, miniature figurines (they seem to be exclusively male) tote packages, ski, operate a Ferris wheel and attend to various and sundry tasks, while sleek Cartier panthers observe the proceedings and keep watch over the sumptuous jewels on display. Adorable yellow cabs speed through the vignettes laden with brightly-wrapped gifts. Let’s see you top that, Uber.
We love the gems from jeweler H. Stern, and their window displays are lovely. It’s a smaller store, so there are fewer to see – but the displays of choice necklaces, bracelets and rings is worth a press of the nose to the glass.
Barneys New York takes a highly whimsical approach to its windows this year. L.A.-based design duo the Haas Brothers have created store windows with Crayola-bright colors and anamorphic objects that resemble sea creatures, plants and animals. It’s cheerful, and there’s a charitable element at work here, too: the sale of “Haas for the Holidays” products will benefit the Children’s Defense Fund. CDF’s mission is to ensure every child has the chance for a successful, healthy, and safe start in life. For every social media post using the holiday campaign hashtag #HAASRULES between the dates of November 16, 2017, and January 1, 2018, the Barneys New York Foundation will give the Children’s Defense Fund $5. We love the cause and the optimism – but we want to see more actual products! They call it window-shopping for a reason, people.
Saks has tough competition with the towering Rockefeller Center tree directly across the street from its flagship store in Manhattan. This year, the store has opted for a “Snow White” theme, and the Fifth Avenue-facing windows are 100% dwarves, an evil witch, Snow White and a Prince. We know it’s the holidays and we don’t mean to be the Grinch, but we just have to say that this all feels quite tone deaf in a city as diverse, sophisticated and progressive as New York. New York woman don’t tend to wait to be saved by a prince; many of us are not snow white, and some of us actually like witches. Just sayin’, Saks. You can do better than this.
Proof positive of that is that the windows facing 49th Street and 50th Street feature dazzling gowns, dresses and accessories, on multi-cultural mannequins who look a lot more like the New Yorkers hurrying by on the street. The theme remains “Snow White,” but on the side street, the witch looks fierce and chic, and her friends are strong women, some of whom are of color. These are the “secondary” locations, and they’re so much more refined, modern and truly luxurious than the main event. We love these, and we hope that next year, they’ll make the move to the main stage on Fifth.
There’s a whole world of beauty downtown that we’ll explore in a future post. For now, our “must-do” list for those pressed for time is the following: go to Bergdorf’s, cross Fifth Avenue and go to Tiffany’s, stay on Fifth and hit H. Stern and Cartier, and pause for a moment on the 50th Street side of Saks. Given the congestion on the sidewalks and in the street, even this circuit will take you 30-45 minutes. Native or visitor, you’ll finish your rounds feeling lighter and a wee bit lucky to be surrounded by such creativity, energy and drive. And it’s all free! You gotta love New York.
