Harvey Nichols

HARVEY NICHOLS

Harvey Nichols is a department store in London famous for its special window displays. The studio was asked to design the windows that would celebrate Autumn 1997 Fashion Week. As the studio started to think about the project, it seemed that in the world of fashion retail, you could choose almost any theme for the windows – Mickey Mouse or giant Airfix kits – as long as it attracted attention. The team had never seen a window display that made a connection with its containing architecture, so it decided to try to create something that would be completely specific to the Harvey Nichols building. Instead of treating the shop’s twelve windows as twelve separate display cabinets, the studio looked for one idea that could bring them together. The finished design imagined that there was no glass and allowed a single vast birch wood veneered installation to burst out into the street, stealing space from the pavement as it wove between the stone pillars of the building’s facade. The dynamic, wriggling and struggling form was in place for two months and extended beyond the boundaries of the shop, rising up the front of the building and protruding beyond its corners.