The holiday windows at the Ralph Lauren mansion this year are glamorous and elegant with a Hollywood movie star feeling. They also have a great bar which I wish I had seen before my post last week! Cheers!
Photos by Heather Clawson for Habitually Chic 
The Bergdorf Goodman holiday windows were still being "tweaked" tonight according to the man in charge David Hoey who I ran into when I was there to photograph them. They looked pretty great to me and I thanked David for always putting together the best windows! The theme this year is "Curiousier and Curiousier" which is inspired by Lewis Carroll and his works Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. You can already see that they swapped out the dog for a parrot in the fantasy library made out of paper. I think my favorite is the birds eye view of the red room with the king and queen playing chess and other games. The room is turned on its side and the details are exquisite! You have to wonder how they glued it all down! I also love the Victorian themed window that looks like a Valentine card and includes a Cheshire cat! The window filled with staircases was inspired by Alice in Wonderland and is entitled "Drink Me." The all mirror and glass covered silver window was of course inspired by Through the Looking Glass and reflects all the lights of Fifth Avenue. They are all amazing and even the four windows around the corner depicting animals continue the fantasy! I hope those of you who can make it to New York will stop by and see them for yourself and for those of you who can't, these photos are my present to you! Happy Holidays!
Photos by Heather Clawson for Habitually Chic
The Bergdorf Goodman holiday windows are almost finished but not quite there yet so you'll have to make due with this little sneak peek. They are so intricate and full of amazing details that they always take a little longer than expected to complete. I'm sure the window dressers must be exhausted since they are working overtime and I personally want to thank them for all their hard work since their holiday windows are always the best! Check back soon for a full report!
Call me old fashioned but I usually like to digest my turkey and pumpkin pie before I can even start to think about Christmas. But since the holiday windows in New York are starting to be unveiled, I figure I have to get over it and start posting them! Simon Doonan, the Creative Director of Barneys is wishing everyone a witty holiday to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Saturday Night Live. The Coneheads window is my personal favorite! 
"I can't wait for this recession to be over - it's such a drag. I'm not one of those people who thinks it's brought us to our higher level of consciousness. I just think it's a colossal bore. But boom times or bad times, my job is to create desire." - Simon Doonan in Departures
Have a Witty Holiday!
Photos by Heather Clawson for Habitually Chic
David Hoey, Senior Director of Visual Presentation (the man behind the windows) of Bergdorf Goodman, was too busy to speak with me before I posted the photos of the gorgeous windows but last week he took time out of his exhausting schedule to give me the scoop on what it takes to put these amazing creations together! Enjoy!
"By now you may have already seen the windows. The theme on Fifth Avenue is "The Seasons" (aka "Calendar Girls"). This year I was going for a truly hallucinatory effect. Like a cross between a trip to a natural history museum and a trip down a rabbit hole. I hope we managed this. We also indulged our penchant for purposely over stuffing the windows with props, antiques, inside jokes, and incident. We love that this maximal effect startles people. The porcelain bird collection in the "Spring" window took more than two years to acquire piece by piece at antique shops, fleamarkets, and ebay."
The first of many layers.
A window on 58th Street
A window on 57th Street 
A window on 57th Street
A window on 57th Street
The holiday windows at Bergdorf Goodman were still not quite finished the other night when I went back to photograph them, hence the little man in the corner of the photo above, but even in their unfinished state, they are spectacular! Part of the reason they took so long was that David Hoey and his team went way over the top this year with their theme of all The Seasons entirely in white. When I met him this summer, he was just starting to think about the holiday windows and since then, they've spent many months crafting cakes out of styrofoam and bathroom caulk and other crazy things. What I love best is that even though there are a few coats and dresses in the windows, Bergdorf's isn't trying to sell anything but rather is giving away a magical experience for free. Something we can all definitely use these days!
