Bergdorf 2011 Holiday Windows

White haired women dominate these windows at Bergdorf Goodman's 5th Ave. store.  Above, I didn't even try to fit the giraffe on the right into the shot.  Below left, a snow white 'fro scares the horses.


Above right, ballroom birds pose in front of winged-reindeer wallpaper.  And below, a white haired spectator admires a stuffed, brassy window.

Macy's Holiday Display 1

The best holiday display I've seen so far this year wasn't in a window, but outside -- the virtual Christmas tree hung from Macy's Herald Square storefront.

I don't like it just because it looks great on a foggy day, but because it doesn't require a theme like the store windows, which manage to go past the Santa-centric Believe Meter, pictured above left, to mushy intergalactic bromides about the power of belief -- in the sacred power of consumerism I assume, since these displays don't pay for themselves -- to heal our inner selves and clear store shelves.

Bergdorf Goodman Holiday Windows

I only saw the windows along Fifth Ave., apparently less creepy than the others, but still strange.  Above, the window woman protects her cake from passersby.

Below left, a sophisticate puffs past the even snootier woman in the window, dressed in a whipped cream gown.  Below right, a familiar sight -- I can't think of a serious painter who does not paint by chandelier while surrounded by dead stuffed animals.


Below left, the Birdwoman of Bergdorf Goodman, staring down a cuckoo clock.  (I fear for the lawn in nearby Central Park if she has to eat her weight in worms every day.)  Below right, a stuffed woman dressed in down, surrounded by stuffed birds and a pigeon palace.  (I think the window designers went a little overboard with the pair of "egg heads" at the bottom.)


Below left, I think the woman is supposed to be surfing the bottom of the sea, under a phony waterfall of resin and seasick green lighting; the only part I like is the cutaway seabed.  And finally, below right, another angle on the scene up top, with a clear view of the aristocratically attired grinch monkey hanging by its tail, fishing for plaster frosted cake.