New York Day 10.

January 10th, 2012 Posted by klittle2 in Uncategorized | Post a Comment »

Today was our last full day in New York. We travelled to 5th Avenue to visit LIM College (Laboratory Institute of Merchandising the only college in New York delivering a Bachelor Visual Merchandising course). Here we spent our time being shown around the facilities by Eric Feigenbaum Cahir and Marjorie Lee Woo Associate Chair. The facilities are sensational but I am sure on leaving all of our students knew that our facilities are right up there except for the quality of the mannequins they receive as donations from manufacturers.

Eric also arranged for us to be addressed by 2 of their admin staff who spoke to the students about the college, courses, the opportunity for them to study at the college as well as study tours their students participate in.

From LIM we all went our seperate ways to catch up on anything we may have missed. This photo was taken in the Sephora window. It was totally hand cut and a similiar design was in each of the 3 windows of the store.

and another sensational outdoor tree.

We then all met up back at the accommodation at different times to commence packing and had dinner at tha Barking Dog a restaurant close to the accommodation.

New York Day 9.

January 10th, 2012 Posted by klittle2 in Uncategorized | Post a Comment »

Today we visited Museum of Modern Art MOMA. On the way we passed an office tower that had the most unbelievable animated Christmas display as the largest tree and decorations we had seen in New York.

Moma was a very different gallery to the Guggenheim it was much larger and had both interior and exterior displays. The exhibitions we visited here were de Kooning- a retrospective, Materials Lab, American Architects and the city and September 11.

From the gallery we went our seperate ways and I ended up viewing Bloomingdales where through their interactive window displays I ended up photographed on the top of their window as well as being placed on their web page

and taking in exterior building decorations

before heading off to view Grand Central Station and the latest Apple store to be opened and the largest in the world. It takes up the entire gallery level of the station wrapping around all 4 sides.

New York Day 7.

January 10th, 2012 Posted by klittle2 in Uncategorized | Post a Comment »

Today before the ARE session commenced we visited some additional showrooms at 7W 34th Street.

After visiting the showrooms we walked back to Fashion Institute Technology FIT to view the exhibition of Daphne Guiness’s Collection. While we were there she made an appearance to view the exhibition herself.

From FIT we made our way to Macy’s to meet up with Douglas Fowler one of two Director of Windows for the Herald Square store as well as overseeing window installations across all Macy’s stores in the US.

What a sensational opportunity. Douglas meet us outside the Herald Square animated window displays to talk us through the designs from concept to installation and about the maintanance and upkeep. The weather today was freezing but just the same we spent close to 2 hours on the busy footpath talking to us. He was so inspiring and spoke to the students about the opportunity to complete an internship with them in the Christmas 2012 leadup.

After freezing on the footpath we finished our session with Douglas and headed inside to warm up, eat a very late lunch and digest the incredible information just delivered to us. We ate this meal in a traditional New York style diner.

From here we headed back to ABC to soak up the wonderful instore displays spraed across 5 floors.

What a full exciting inspirational day.

New York Day 8.

December 10th, 2011 Posted by klittle2 in Uncategorized | Post a Comment »

Today we visited the Guggenheim to view the exhibitions as well as the architecture. We saw exhibitions by Kandinsky called Painting with White Border, Pop objects and Icons from the Guggenheim Collection, Surface, Support, Process The 1960′s Monochrome and the main sculpture by Maurizio Cattelan.

From the Guggenheim we walked Central Park ans saw the playing fields, the castle, the reservior, the turtle pond, the boathouse and Strawberry Fields. What an amazing space

We spent hours wandering through the park until the cold got to be too much. From there we took the subway to Times Square and queued at the TKTS Booth for cheap theatre tickets. We purchased tickets to RENT and 6 of us went to see it later in the evening. Queueing up was bitterly cold and Times Square was madness with people.

What about these christmas decs and flowers we found for sale close by to where we are staying.

and look at this sculpture we found in a window

New York Day 6.

December 9th, 2011 Posted by klittle2 in Uncategorized | Post a Comment »

Today we attended the ARE Retail Design Collective presentation on “Visual Merchandising takes centre stage” presented by Anne DiNardo, Eric Feigenbaum, Harry Cunningham and Les Hiscoe.

They spoke about the benefits to the retailer of VM and how important it is for the branding to be strongly represented and be incorporated in the displays within a store. The outlined the style of retailers in residence on 5th avenue and how that is changing. We all found this session to be really well presented and most informative and cme away rom it very inspired.

After the presentation we visited showrooms at 7W 34th street spread over 11 levels and showcasing Mannequins, Fixtures and props.

Here are some photos from Holiday Image, Gargoyles and Bernstein Displays.

We travelled from the showrooms to the Rockefellar Centre to travel to the “Top of the Rock”. This was part of our Manhattan Comprehensive tour last Saturday but due to heavy traffic we arrived back too late to do it.

The lift ride to the top was wild with the roof of the lift being in glass you could see how fast we were travelling. Once at the top the views across Manhattan were simply amazing. It was freezing outside but even the cold could not prevent us from viewing from all 3 outdoor levels.

Once down on the groung we had an opportunity to view the tree and christmas decorations

before visiting the Anthropologie store which was the store the VM staff advised us of where to buy our materials for the PAVE project.

By now it was dark so we headed to Saks 5th Avenue to experience the 4D light presentation being projected onto the outside of the building. It was amazing to see and it tied into the displays in the windows below.

The light show ran for 20 minutes and commenced on each half hour for 4 hours each evening. In between presentations the light show counted down till the next session began.

From viewing Saks turning around you saw the Rockefellow Centre displays.

What an amazing way to finish off the day.

New York Day 1.

December 9th, 2011 Posted by klittle2 in Uncategorized | Post a Comment »

Today we commence our visit to New York with a cultural experience by participating in a comprehensive Manhattan tour by bus and boat. This photo shows some of us in Central Park.

The Wintergarden down next to Ground Zero

The traffic was really heavy on our return to mid town with hundreds of people looking at the Christmas lights as it was the first weekend they were all lit.

We walked from 48th Street down 6th Avenue to the iconic Macy’s Herald Square and on the way passed a number of outdoor installations

New York Day 2.

December 9th, 2011 Posted by klittle2 in Uncategorized | Post a Comment »

We started today by taking the 6 line subway from our local station 96th Street to the Meatpacking District.

Chelsea Market was our first destination. In the Meatpacking District Chelsea Market is the old National Biscuit Company complex. The companies ovens went cold a half century ago, when the company moved out, but newer ovens have been working over the last decade in part of that old complex - from Ninth to 10th Avenue and 15th to 16th Street.

The market houses retail stores as well as a large number of food outlets. A favourite was the Anthropologie store. The amount of Visual Merchandising in this store is endless. Everywhere you look are integrated product groupings and displays incorporating product and beautifully crafted handicrafts. All of the students loved this store.

The market was decorated for Christmas and given that it was a Sunday the place was jam packed with people.

After we had all finished at the Market we movewd upstairs to the High Line. The High Line is a public park built on an historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side. It is owned by the City of New York, and maintained and operated by Friends of the High Line. Founded in 1999 by community residents, Friends of the High Line fought for the High Line’s preservation and transformation at a time when the historic structure was under the threat of demolition.

The High Line is located on Manhattan’s West Side. It runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to West 34th Street, between 10th & 11th Avenues. The first section of the High Line opened on June 9, 2009. It runs from Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street. The second section, which runs between West 20th and West 30th Streets, opened June 8, 2011.

After leaving the High Line we roamed the streets around the Meatpacking district viewing the designer fashion stores that line both sides of the street. Two of the stores displays that stood out from the rest were Diane von Furstenberg and the Alexander McQueen store where we spent time so Joshua and Nicole could soak up McQueen inspiration.

We also had time to spend in the Sephora store that is the latest they have opened and is the latest they have opened in the new design style. The Christmas decorations they have used are white paper flowers.

New York Day 3.

December 9th, 2011 Posted by klittle2 in Uncategorized | Post a Comment »

Today we took the subway to Barneys New York on Madison Ave which is an emporium of beautiful things. Along with Christmas window displays they are currently featuring a complete floor of christmas gift suggestions inspired by Lady Ga Ga.

This floor was outrageous in its presentation and stock and the staff were like it was playtime. Product was displayed on Ga Ga inspired fixtures and was so out of the ordinary and expensive. Barney’s is an out there store and sells high end merchandise.

we visited FAO Schwartz the world’s biggest Toy store.

We visited the Plaza Hotel and downstairs in the retail arcade the Eloise store. This store is based on the character of a young mischievious girl who lives in the Plaza and sells everything relating to her including books, clothes, dvd’s etc

From the Plaza we walked the window displays at Bergdorf Goodman but chose to photograph them one evening as it was so increadibly busy around them.

It was now time to begin prepping the displays for Pave GALA. We split into groups with one heading off to collect sticks from Central Park and the other to make material purchases. We met with the visual merchandisers at Anthropologie to source purchasing recycled paper and headed off to 20th Street to a number of suppliers. We then all headed back to 1760 ate dinner in and all set to to create the props required for the displays on Wednesday. These photos show us working in our rooms. This ended up a really late night.

New York Day 4.

December 9th, 2011 Posted by klittle2 in Uncategorized | Post a Comment »

Today the students continued to work on prepping the displays for the PAVE Gala for installation tomorrow.

This afternoon I attended the first session to be run by ARE Retail Design Collective

The session was a Retail Design Dossier presented by Material ConneXion – Materials specialists and Retail designers, Pantone -colour forcasters and Stylus - Retail Architects and held at the offices and showroom of Material ConneXion on Madison Avenue.

The sessions spoke about design projects the companies had worked on throughout 2011 and forcasts for trends and new material releases for 2012.

At the completion of the sessions we had access to the materials library that designers in New York can access when working on projects and were able to hold and look closely at the latest release materials they had presented to us during the sessions. Attending these sessions were college instructors from colleges in New York as well as California and retail designers. The group attending was small which offerred a good opportunity to participate in the sessions as well as network with other attendees.

The session completed at 6pm and I organised to meet all of the students at the Flat Iron Building. Today it had rained most of the afternoon and when Imet up with them they had taken shelter under an awning in front of this display window by Faber Castelle promoting their coloured pencils and pastels. Paper drinking cups had been decorated using their products.

After meeting up we went to Eatilly an Italian eatery that had opened up a year ago and had really transformed eating italian in this area. The building housed 6 restaurants and marked place on the ground floor and a restaurant and bar on the rooftop that had only opened in October. This was the area we were headed for to celebrate the study tour with a welcome dinner.

What about this unusual shopping trolley that was used in the italian marketplace?

Prior to meeting up with me a group of the studentsmet up with Visual Merchandisers at the new Zara store on 5th Avenue which was being prepared to open to discuss working with the company and see the staff in action.

After our dinner as we were down in the area of New York where there are a number of Homewares stores we visited Fishes Eddy, ABC and Restoration Hardware before returning to our accommodation to complete preparations for the props.

New York Day 5.

December 9th, 2011 Posted by klittle2 in Uncategorized | Read Comments(1) or Post a Reply »

Here are the students in the front window of the New York showroom of Adele Rootstein. What a treat to be in this space filled with their latest ranges in an incredibly sensational space fully styled by their Paris based creative director who single handed makes, purchases and styles every outfit. Our showroom visit was organised through Rita Conde also based in the Paris showroom and in New York for Market Week. We thank Rita for this wonderful experience.

This ant was one of a number on display in the window

From Rootstein we took the subway to Wall Street and the Cipriana Building where the Pave Gala was being held. Today the weather is miserable cold with heavy rain.

Students from FIT New York were working at the GALA side by side with us creating re-cycled garments for the mannequins that were supplied as well as displaying accessory pieces that students from across the US had worked.