Santa under Glass
ON Boston's Summer Street last week, an elderly woman gazed at a store window and said: "It's the loveliest thing I ever saw." Behind the glass, Jordan Marsh Co. had set up an orchestra of 14 tiny angels dressed in gold and white against a pastel-blue background; the blond leader tapped a baton, and his musicians lifted their instruments to the strains (recorded) of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. The woman's comment was heard often around the U.S. last week. For Christmas 1953, retail stores had spent $30 million to turn their windows into a shopper's art gallery.
No one wanted to be outdone. Shoppers in Chicago, San Francisco, Manhattan and Atlanta saw some of the best--illustrated in color on the opposite page. In Dallas, a $35,000 display of art masterpieces -- including 15th century French stone angels, a 16th century Dutch painting of the Madonna and Christ Child--was borrowed from a Manhattan dealer and displayed by A. Harris & Co. After the fine art, shoppers could move on to Neiman-Marcus and see a $25,000 display of cherubs joyfully clanging cymbals and playing games under a pastel sky.
Rudolph & Old Scrooge. Seattle's Bon Marche pictured Christmas as it used to be in the Old World, with huge copies of German, Austrian and Italian toys. In Washington, Woodward & Lothrop brought to life The Night Before Christmas, with sleeping children, animated sugar plums, Santa and his prancing steeds. In Denver, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer wept giant tears at Daniels and Fisher Stores Co., and the May Department Stores Co. built Santa's toy factory for the city's youngsters. At Detroit's J. L. Hudson Co., a delightful doll named Christmas Carol clutched a candy-striped Teddy bear on her visit to the North Pole. In other cities, there were kitchen angels busily preparing yuletide feasts, velvet and lace dolls in 1890 snowscapes, rosy-cheeked children scribbling letters to Santa, handsome windows showing Dickens' Christmas Carol, with lifelike figures of Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit and Old Scrooge.
U.S. Christmas displays have grown mightily since grandmother's day. One of the first big displays was in 1874, when Manhattan's Macy's put a collection of dolls in its window instead of the usual holly-decorated merchandise. The window was a great success, and this year Macy's spent an estimated $75,000 to show what a white Christmas looked like in 1850. Other U.S. stores, which used to be content with doggedly symmetrical flower vases and stilted mannequins, have picked up the idea, until today Christmas takes up an average 60% of retail store display budgets. Most stores do their own work, are busy months ahead of time. Those who want a custom job turn to the cluster of small firms which make a business of turning windows into wonderlands.
The Violinist & the Pastry Cook. Two of the biggest are Chicago's Silvestri Art Manufacturing Co., which made the dolls for Lord & Taylor (opposite), and Manhattan's Staples-Smith Inc., which designed the Nativity scene for Chicago's Carson Pirie Scott & Co. Between them, the two companies gross well over $2,000,000 a year, serve nearly 100 stores around the U.S. Silvestri specializes in composition mechanical dolls that cost up to $1,150 apiece ($18,000 for a complete set of 60) and can be dressed up to resemble a Viennese violinist or a French pastry cook. This year 37 stores and office buildings from Manhattan to Miami will have Staples-Smith displays costing from $1,000 to $75,000. Store owners credit the company and its president, Cecilia Staples, with some of the best windows yet designed. All are planned to the last ribbon, then built with every material from ermine to gumdrops popcorn and broken beer bottles to simulate amber.
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