Window dressing at retail: we learn from... Loewe

You already know that not everything is eCommerce for us. We also like telling you about news, trends and resources related to trade in general, retail included. 

Today, we talk about shop window at retail and we learn from Loewe, absolute model to take into account when speaking about window dressing and visual merchandising.

While in the great cities of the world had already began to understand the importance of having a well-designed shop window and how it could have an impact on the brand´s image and attracting audience, it was not paid the same attention nationwide. 

Imagine what a window shop meant in the1940s. Possibly we do not exaggerate if we say that it was its main channel of communication with the client. 

Those were the golden times for retail when “going shopping” meant really going:  move physically to the streets where shops were. Any alternative only worked timidly and depending on which markets, and mail order sales did not exist. 

In this context, in 1939, Enrique Loewe, who was the new director of a company that already had a remarkable and successful journey in leather goods and accessories (founded in 1846), decided to open a store in the middle of Madrid's Gran Vía. He wished it become the brand´s flagship. 

Loewe's shop windows back in 1846 were not too much different from any other store of similar characteristics: display of goods with much grace, and no special order. In short, pretty boring as others. 

Everything changed in 1939 when, together with Enrique Loewe, José Pérez de Rozas arrived as creative director. This man has prompted a decisive the window dressing in his time. But, in addition to that, he marked some guidelines that remain unchanged to the present day. 

Pérez de Rozas took over the shop windows of the stores as a challenge or rather a mission that lasted 33 years. Three decades which were not easy, in a very difficult social context. 

Through window dressing Loewe managed to illuminate the streets in grey times. And because of this the luxury par excellence in the collective imagination of the 1940s was used: Hollywood. 

Stores projected an idea of luxury and extra class, full of oneiric elements and artistic metaphors and conceptually complex but effective.
 

The product itself was the protagonist though, in a distinctive way, Pérez de Rozas likes incorporating some very characteristic elements, like animals covered with brads that became very distinctive in the brand. 

We can say that the work of Pérez de Rozas has not fallen on deaf ears. Actually, many features, a methodology and an artistic approach have been extracted prevailing 60 years later- with the obvious stylistic evolution and adaptation to the new interests of its new audience. 

The figure of its creative director is so important that the brand decided to dedicate him a tribute through the windows of their shops in 2013 Christmas campaign. To that extend he is a reference for Loewe. 

Images | Pinterest; click on the imatge to acccess to its source.

Head photo | Fotolia.