Window displays might just be one of our very favorite things to work on at Unglued! You can take the opportunity with a window to create an artistic installation to inspire everyone who walks by – but it does always take waaaaay longer than we plan to make happen (insert lots of coffee). We might have a super small window in Fargo or split windows in Sioux Falls, but we try to make our space count and create a “feel” for the shop that is sometimes themed and sometimes just whatever we want to try next! We learned long ago that we much prefer to have our window displays capture a feeling rather than having merchandise only. (Sidetone: we just posted some even older window display pics on our new Pinterest board for it!) Below is a recap of our windows from this past year and a couple behind-the-scenes looks:
Our window from Jan-April in Fargo kept a boxy peek at rotating merchandise on one side of the divided pane and on the opposing side we changed it up completely a couple times. The first run at the changed side was an “Alice in Wonderland” theme that Kristina created to go with the Fargo Film Festival call to do our retail windows with movie themes:
Later on within the same window we also helped promote my brother’s Northern Folk event we added a large poster temporarily and American flag supporting the American-made mission of it:
The rotating featured gifts boxy side of all of this:
Rewind to our combo Valentine’s peek of inventory with our Craft Fest poster hanging on the opposing side for February:
Summer window goal: To feel party-like and summer-like together to go with our Summer Party Series of workshops! Dana used her crazy hand lettering, painting, and drawing skills to create the scene below with a keyhole to peer in the window and Kristina created the tissue and hoops to fall behind it and create a party feel:
When it came time to create our first Sioux Falls window we tried to keep with our “Summer Party Series” feel and maybe took it a little far when we realized some people thought we were opening a party store (which, I mean, would be super fun and awesome!!)…but we loved it still and it got people talking!!
Later on Sioux Falls featured the mad skills of our manager Ashley R and her string art creating a rainbow/summery background with string and then painted clouds and fun on the window to help it pop more:
(photo from the Argus Leader’s awesome photo gallery of Ashley and Abbey doing this window installation HERE! <– this link has a lot of pretty photos of the process of this window including of Abbey’s sweet shoes;)!)
Window glare will be the death of us, but you can get the idea of how having some pieces of our displays super close to the window itself or on it can help a fish with that…I think both of our windows are pointed to create the worst glare possible, but the saving grace is nighttime beauty through them – and learning to work with it…
Fall window goals: For a slight back-to-school theme we were going for some sort of “galaxy” look to them + the word curious. In Fargo we made 3 canvases by painting them black, using paint pens to draw fall constellations, and put Christmas lights through the stars to illuminate them (and quite honestly I just really wanted these in my house afterwards!!):
In Sioux Falls Allie had previously done this kick ass galaxy dress DIY on our blog and utilized those skills on a way larger scale while Ashley created the letters with spray paint and planets with fabric and embroidery hoops!
In Sioux Falls they additionally changed up the window for the Harvest Festival (we heart fall so much!!). During a First Friday they had shoppers stop by and write on black posterboard and write what they were grateful and used those in the window:
Holiday window goal: install something to go with our theme of “love local” but not “puke Christmas” either (Justin’s coined phrase used often during the holidays). In Fargo Justin helped us figure out using PVC pipe and chicken wire to create a wreath, about 4,000 coffee filters we dipped in gold paint, and then glitter sprayed. We added a heart wrapped in buffalo plaid wrapping paper and later added yarn balls to get the red heart to feel like it belonged more!
We had wanted to go for something huge this time for a window instead of a lot of things repeating (which is also something we love to do for eye candy…!)…sidenote: Kristina thinks someone needs to use this gold/champagne colored wreath for their wedding and I totally agree…
All together this Fargo window took 3 of us working a full 10 hour day on it but with a lot of coffee and great company it seriously flew by…(so seriously – that would have been 30 hours for someone alone!)…
In Sioux Falls with the split windows the whole crew created a smaller wreath and divided up the heart into another window:
And that’s a wrap!! Most of these take 1-3 days to finish and about $50-300 in supplies. Sometimes the ones that seem like they’ll be the most cost effective end up costing the most either because of how many repeating (but cheap/resourceful) things are needed or just time itself! It’s definitely been quite the learning curve and we get inspiration all the time from our travels, Pinterest (although we strive to not just repeat something too similar to ideas on there and use only pieces we are inspired by), shops we visit (yes, truly Anthropologie is always a stop for us any time we are in the cities), 5th Avenue in NY (ha – not by traveling there…but by searching online for snapshots of those boutiques), and going off themes we choose to get ideas specifically for and working with it (this is what happens most often!).
I really don’t think awesome window displays should only happen in 5th Avenue shops but it sure is nice they have dedicated teams to work on them (but that would take the fun out of it, right?!). You can see some even older window displays we’ve done (and see if we’ve progressed or not!) on our new Pinterest board to keep these somewhere in the world and not on just my laptop that’s dying!
Thanks for sharing in this<3 Can’t wait to see what 2016 brings! One thing for sure is better window lighting 😉