Oxford Street Window Displays this Christmas

1st December 2015

You may remember our recent blog post about the unusual approach that Selfridges have taken to their Oxford Street window displays this Christmas. They were one of the first shops in the iconic street to put their decorations up this year and now December is upon us the others have followed suit with a variety of interesting displays. Here is our round up of the best of the rest:

Photo by Heidi Fin on Unsplash

Photo by Heidi Fin on Unsplash

Niketown

Unlike the Selfridges window – which doesn’t feature any of the store’s products – the Nike Town visual merchandising offer is all about the brand and plugging their latest product lines – and a range of affordable Christmas gifts for the sports-conscious consumer.

The main focus of Nike’s VM is the Nike Flash Pack clothing range, which promotes a range of high visibility weather-proof clothing. Rather than using traditional Christmas scenes, the brand creates a festive feel with images of snowy mountains, backed with Aurora Borealis style lighting in hues of green with neon light tubes arrangements around and above the products (possibly a nod to the Christmas Star Wars release and their light sabres?).

Urban Outfitters

Where Niketown and Selfridges have ignored Christmas tradition, Urban Outfitters have bucked the trend, going for something unashamedly festive, using low key, simple styling to offset the array of products in their window. The display elements of the window scenes are primarily two dimensional, with a ‘handmade’ appearance, featuring simply-drawn figures holding gifts and looking happy. Plywood and cardboard cut-outs with chipboard shelves and pegboard style Christmas trees enable the product ranges to shine in a display which is very much in keeping with the U-O brand.

Debenhams

Debenhams on Oxford Street has a bright and uplifting display this year, with lots of glitter, fur and sparkle, inspired by their 2015 ‘Found it’ Christmas gift campaign.

Mannequins are draped across brightly coloured stars, adorned with glowing carnival lights in jewel bright colours. Digital screens do the bulk of the work, with a series of swirling images featuring vintage glamourpusses opening intricately wrapped gifts. Quite possibly the grandest window in the street, it is hard to tear your attention away from the alluring parade of glowing opulence, which hypnotises you into entering the store and making a purchase.

River Island

Further down the street at River Island, they have taken a traditional Christmas message and made it their own – ‘Style is not just for Christmas’ is a play on the traditional ‘A dog is for life…’ message and the store have paid tribute to their source with a variety of glamorous dogs joining the mannequins on display.

The focus of this display is primarily on the party season rather than a traditional Christmas tableau but the use of hot pink and neons and silver globes creates a stunning effect, which is repeated throughout the store.

Unlike previous Christmases on the iconic street there are no real stand out themes for 2015, with less emphasis on a traditional Christmas and more than a little bit of space age futurism with many stores leaning towards silver lighting. Selfridges have already denied that their celestial ‘signs of the zodiac’ themed display was influenced by the imminent Star Was movie release but it could be possible that the cultural climate is subconsciously influencing some of the festive designs this year – from Niketown’s light-sabre lighting to River Island’s ‘White Wookiee’ Afghan hounds. Take a look if you’re passing and let us know what you think!