review gets racy

Hot to trot! It's the one time of the year when I feel tall, when jockey's take center stage on the race-track and Melbourne retailers get themselves into a Spring Racing frenzy!

This week I worked with an old colleague to create a Spring Racing installation for Review at Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbourne.

Inspired by a selection of Review's palette in dusk, champagne and cream, styled mannequins took to an oversized chess board with the knights taking key place.

The monochrome landing stage of black and white chess pieces allows the product to take out first and second prize at fashion on the field with accessories, racers and hats from Myer accentuating Review's race attire.

This installation is definately odds on favourite to turn heads this Spring Racing at Chadstone- without a doubt, the fashion capital.

send in the clowns

As I walked past Dotti's Chadstone store today I couldn't help but turn my head in time with the vintage clowns in their window.

Whilst my mind was taken back to Summer as a kid spending ridiculous amounts of pocket money to win a less than impressive prize worth substantially less than my clown expenditure, I couldn't help but gaze at the bright colourful circus theme that has taken over Dotti's window.

At risk of catching circus schizophrenia I wandered in store which looks like the circus had one corn-dog too many and threw up all over the walls however the window is a tightly packaged homage to all things circus.

The red clown noses are a cute touch on the mannequin styling, whilst the working clowns in the window create movement and bring back those childhood memories (or fears) of the annual Summer fete and THE CLOWNS!

I've seen the B&C grade store versions of this window and unfortunately it doesn't translate- 2d cut outs of props are far less impactful than the real 3d McCoy- sometimes less is more...red noses with a backdrop could've been enough in these stores to translate this A grade theme into a real circus treat.

I love this window, I love the circus and I'm off to practice my trapeze.

lovingly handcrafted in UggStralia...

This week was all about vintage wares gathered for the Ugg Shop's Flinders Street window update!

The brief was to highlight that Urban Ugg Co's Ugg Boots are made in Melbourne, Victoria unlike many other varieties of Ugg's.

I used a vintage Aussie flag as the backdrop to create a setting of a studio caught in a moment in time.

From the vintage office stool, to the old cutting plates and wooden lasts direct from the factory this window as an overall feel of vintage Aussie charm to speak true of the Urban Ugg Co's creation of their Ugg Boots.

david downton @ chadstone

If you haven't made the trip to Chadvegas to see Chadstone's tribute to fashion illustrator David Downton yet, get on the M1 and put the pedal to the metal...

Chadvegas retailers were invited to participate in a 'Art in Fashion' window installation competition where the brief was to create a window display using an illustration of some description that showed their product or range development.

Whilst it is sometimes difficult for the giant retailers to get involved and put their people power into creating something specifically for one store, full props to Portmans, Jacqui E and Mimco who pulled off my fave windows of the DD tour.

I do have to make mention of Ted Bakers fun animated window- that wasn't a part of the DD parade, however was very cute, kitche and colourful! I go crazy for any kind of animation or movement in a window display.

It was great to see some little (I use this word lightly, afterall they are paying Chadstone rent!) independents get involved however for me, none of them really ticked the box of amazing VM.

Chaddy certainly know how to turn on the class when putting together a marquee or centre display, and that, they did to showcase some of DD's art and information in the main DD info centre.

sunken float

On a recent road trip towards Mornington Peninsula I came across this fab location featuring from what I can tell...an old horse float, split in two, rusted and sunken into the ground.

I did think about getting out my shovel to dig for the remains of the horse but thought it may look a little strange to the family playing on the playground near by!

The sun created such amazing shadows and colours shining through the windows of the float with the stripped trees in the background setting a beautiful scene!

topple me topshop

Topshop has topped itself again and already in Oxford St, UK with a revamp to raise the bar of their UK flagship to meet the store experience of their newly opened New York store.

For anyone heading to the UK, TopShop is a must do on the 'to do' list as it is a tourist site within itself for anybody who can appreciate an amazing retail experience, and let's face it, most of us can!

I'll let the photos speak for themselves, but the make-over has completely blown my mind- it's great to see how the space looks before the millions of customers enter the doors!

old jetty charm

i'm in love with this location that I found way out west of Melbourne...the old jetty's have such charm and would be the ideal backdrop to contrast with a high-fashion shoot! where is it? now that I can't tell...

the exquisite palette 2010

After some technical difficulty- I'm back, and this time with some local window flavour!

St Luke Artists Colourmen in Smith Street, Collingwood have just wound up their 2010 exhibition 'The Exquisite Palette'. Over 100 artists created artworks out of the somewhat kitsch and arguably outdated, wooden palette.

But it was with this canvas that some genius made it's way on display in and around the store including the front window of St Luke.

I am still mad for an interactive window that features installations, competitions or even live art and this exhibition was just brilliant. I somewhat looked like a bohemian artist stalker as I stood in front of the window for at least 20 minutes staring down each palette as I tried to find a favourite.

Now, I'm no good with a pencil and paper- if you ever play Pictionary with me you'll see my frustration first hand, but I can and do appreciate such amazing quality and work.

If you missed this exhibition for this year- don't worry, it will be back in 2011 as it is an annual fixture on St Luke's calendar- and they're keeping a select range of the 200+ entries in the window for a few weeks to come.

Pop on down to Collingwood in the midst of AFL final season (if you dare) and check out something other than a Collingwood AFL poster in a window at St Lukes Artists Colourmen.

Keep on reading...

It may have been a while since I've posted a new and super-fab VM blog, but stay tuned...this little VM has literally just completed one of the most mammoth VM tasks in record short time...

have you any wool?

Over the past few weeks I've been doing some work with Urban Ugg Co, who run 3 stores in Melbourne called 'The Ugg Shop'.

I've certainly learned a lot about Ugg's and the fact that the word 'Ugg' is merely a type of shoe rather than a brand. And the 'Australian Ugg Boot Store' are an American company who manufacture their Uggs in Asia.

All Ugg's from Urban Ugg Co are manufactured in Victoria- Australia using 100% A Grade sheep- baa baa...

Here are some photos from the recent revamp including the windows and interiors of the Flinders Street store.

kangan batman do vm

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to meet up with Ron Watkins, the Visual Merchandising Course Director at Kangan Batman Institute of TAFE.

I was skeptical of VM courses after hearing a few 'horror' stories that they perhaps didn't offer a 'real-life view' of what the VM industry involved, however after asking Ron a few questions I had almost decided to put on my mature-age cap, pull out the crayola's and apply for this course myself!

JT- What is the VM course you are offering?

RW- The VM course at Kangan is a Diploma of Visual Merchandising. There is as yet, no higher level of VM qualification in the country.

JT- How does your course differ to other VM courses out there?

RW- There are two major differences between the Kangan course and the others:

1. It is eighteen months long and the others are two years.
2. During this time the students will have at least ten weeks work experience, in store, working as a professional.

Its the "new kid on the block" as far as VM education goes in the country.

JT- What can the students expect over their 3 semesters?

RW- A life changing experience. Lots of creative hands-on work, exposure to the global scene of Art, Design and VM, sensible structures that enable one to manage life, work, creativity and money!
FUN, great colleagues and introductions to industry professionals.

JT- How does your course 'realistically' prepare the students for the real world of retail?

RW- Our aim from the very first day is to treat the students as if they were at work.
Every lesson, skill and body of knowledge targets professionalism at an international level.

With the largest component of VM work experience of any course internationally, our students soon see the realities of the profession.There are few delusions as to what they are getting themselves into after graduation.

JT- So, what's next for this VM course to help prepare aspiring VM's for a successful career?

RW- There are very exciting plans for the future. Kangan is a very supportive learning environment which readily embraces new ideas and approaches. The future should see a complete career path for those beginning in a VM life and higher qualifications for those already working as professionals.
The course is young, but the world is big, busy and shopping!
A course of this type will eventually have an international reputation and the opportunity to involve the students in colleges in the USA and London.

raindrops keep falling on my...

What better way to brighten up a rainy Winter's day with stitched up technicolour raindrops?

Sportsgirl, Bourke Street Mall have transformed their VM installation space into a Winter's delight, suspending scores of oversized, colourful rainddrops made from off-cuts of bright, energetic materials.

i love a good copy line, and Sportsgirl have found just that with 'Without rain there would be no rainbows'!

The rainbow reference is cute and works perfectly for the season, the weather and for the brand that has lasted throughout the ages with their nostalgic rainbow logo.

The metallic clouds and backdrop off-set the colourful raindrops perfectly and give an extra shine to this installation and add to the 'expensive' factor.

Without rain, we'd also have no umbrellas, water or wonderful Sportsgirl windows...I'm lifting this window to stage 5 water restrictions, because it's hot!

Tackling affordable creativity

For those of you who have been living under a rock (those whom are doing so due to financial crisis may be forgiven) you'll notice that the word is on the street that VM budgets are being cut, chopped up into little pieces of fine excel formula's and never to be reinstated again...

During the last 6 months of my previous position I found myself suffering from double-click anxiety disorder, caused from the emotional stress of shrinking excel columns due to dwindling budget numbers...As a VM not only was I suffering with stress of having to excel in excel, the challenge of creating cost-effective VM solutions had reared it's cheap and nasty head. Thankfully I was in a similar position to most of the VM world, so we would do what we had to do...take a shoe-string budget and get creative, now, more than ever.

With clever graphic design and a willing printer some of the most simple of ideas can translate into bravo display such as Hermes window on Collin's street where they've used the simple notion of black line illustration and silhouette's of regular peeps to recreate a library scene popped with hues of Hermes.

As effective as this window is, we need to remember it really only involves one thing and that is print and form. Who would've thought it could be this easy...and most importantly...cost effective.

As you cheaply wonder the streets like the VM hooker that you are have a think about the dollars spent on those windows that stand out- I guarantee they don't always cost what they're worth!

the envelope project

I love it when a window display involves some form of interactivity and the audience participation cue card is working overtime to cute-ify Meet Me At Mike's window in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.

The idea is that you send MEAM an envelope with something small and 'cute'. All envelopes they receive will be photographed along with the little bits of magic inside the envelopes, they'll then go up on MEAM's blog and the envelope will form a part of they're ever-growing window display.

At the end of the project one lucky envelope sender will win ALL of the bits and pieces that MEAM have received- and by the looks of it the winner will have enough 'stuff' to fill a Spotlight store...let's hope Tonia Todman has her entry in, she'd be mad for the crafty bits that they've received thus far!

I love that this idea fits in with the hand-crafted elements of the MEAM store and I'm sure it will be sending all MEAM's friends into a cute and crafty craze!

the doggy biscuit sale

Sass & Bide have gone barking mad with their latest sale window...

Bones seem to be on trend for Sass & Bide's VM this season with past windows featuring the skeleton's of all things dead bling'd up to tie in with their dazzling range of threads in store.



I've tried to find bones in my past VM adventures and have found it quite a tricky feat, however I have never gone quite as far as using animal treats to suffice...however, can I just say...LOVE IT!

I'm 99% sure the bones featured in Sass & Bide's Mid Season Sale window are those you'd feed your pet pooch, but the shaping of 'SALE' with masking tape and doggy bones works well to reveal a vintage, handcrafted sale window that stands out from the crowd of 'Up To...' off messages in all shades of red as you venture down Chapel Street and throughout retail centers.

I love a brand that puts thought into a sale window, in this tough market, sale is no excuse to blend in.

If walking your pooch past a Sass & Bide window is anything to go by on how effective this sale window is, Sass deserve a big thumbs up! Woof!

the kooks campaign

Kookai's AW10 campaign was shot at Cockatoo Island in Sydney by Simon Upton...now this is a place that I've been meaning to visit, but it seems like the industrial backdrop has been done to death so I may be one photoshoot too late...

Simon Upton shot this campaign and has done a fabulous job making the good old Kooks stand out from the crowd, it's just a shame that their stores don't evoke the same emotions as their A grade campaigns.

I'm yet to meet Mr Upton himself, but his work is fab, making trash...terrific, shooting campaigns for Valleygirl, Just Jeans and Charlie Brown...and for the record, my middle name is trash.

I'm secretly in love with the 'messy dressy' hair-do, call it hair envy perhaps but the messy dressy gets my goat every time...ladies it's time to release the teasing comb!

One thing I do want to do is give Valerjia from Chic a Nurofen Plus because I'm somewhat over the 'headache' pose. It's time to let those fingers do the walking away from the temples and to the fierce machine.

the shoes on a wire

Now I'm not sure if it's true that shoes over a wire outside a house means that they'll have more than icing sugar and sherbet bombs stocked in their home pantry...however if this is the case, Topman must be going off and every one's invited with their Liverpool store's opening shoe window!

The folks at SFD design have used their in-house creative team to create and install this tongue-in-cheek display incorporating vinyl and 3d power lines with Topman shoes flung over the top as a sign. It reminds me of the backstreets of Collingwood only with more furness and colour!

Is it a coincidence that everybody is asking the store manager if his name is Jason?

the flocked feathers of sportsgirl

Once again Sportsgirl have proven that they're captain of the VM team, with the creative collaboration of Amanda Henderson's Gloss Creative and one giant flocking chamber!

Sportsgirl's Bourke St VM installation space has been transformed into a fantasy scene with an oversized set of illustrations that create a mood of intrigue and adventure as you stare down the length of a weathered and overgrown hallway of gloom.




Where there is gloom there is glee as a cleverly static display creates movement with the suspension of flocked birds being released from the hacked floorboards.

I especially like the use of the flooring that has been 'cut open' which makes you want to dig into the rest of the display to release more of the colourful flocked friends.



The cages on the left side of the entrance are strong feature props however this part of the display doesn't seem as clean as the rest...I think the sticks in the cages are overkill and dare I say it...too much flocking! I think this part of the installation would've worked by suspending a flutter of birds flying from the cages without the sticks to capture the same effect as the right hand side part of the installation even toying with the idea of incorporating product.

I'm still not convinced this creative installation space works when you inter grate the rest of the creative throughout the store as we go from an almost colourful Gothic scene into a spasm of stuffed toys and carnival as their 'collect me' creative continues in store.

One thing I am convinced of is that Sportsgirl continue to lead the Bourke St Mall procession in VM!