Tuesday, February 3, 2009

RECESSION SHOPPING IN THE GARMENT DISTRICT NYC


We know it's a recession so sales are down, but do you think women really want to admit that they need "Hippo Shoes"? 12 small "Special Sale / No Tax!" signs topped by a 13th "Yes! We're Open!" sign makes an auspicious number of cries of desperation.


Below is the most prominent of the Macy's window displays, the window facing Herald Square - home to the elaborate yearly Christmas installation. It is presently one of the probably better funded barren recession displays in the city and a tome to the inner workings of a consumer with their spending hands perpetually in their pockets...


On the left, Inwardness & Introspection. To the right, Hope.


Madness / Hopelessness / Disbelief / The Humanity / God Save Me ; What Have We Done?


Protectiveness / Mistrust.


M & J Trimming, a drag queen's total paradise. This pyramid is just one side of the window display and it is a towering site, festooned with boas at the top (!), which I was unable to capture. I mean click and get into this stuff!



Two separate window displays of Aretha Franklin's other inaugural hat options, available at $5 to $15.


The great finale in no budget recession window display: romantic roses and a random stool in tin foil. The queens sitting in the back of the empty store could not have been more resourceful.

3 comments:

Mitzi said...

Shoes for hippopotamuses? I expected a better display from Macy's they're not doing as well as M&J trimmings are they? which is a lovely display. Macy's might do better if the dummies hands were outstretched and cupped together to form a begging bowl. Shops over here are closing down right, left and centre, but the £-shops are thriving.

ayeM8y said...

I love the M&J Trimmings display. It’s like an obsessive compulsive thing to me to linger in pasamenterie and decorative nail head stores. It takes me back to when I used to fashion racks of stripper garments and wheel them in for the whores to buy. They loved the service and the use of tassel.

The tin foil window is not so bad really. It’s creative use of minimal materials a perfect austere but fabulous bang for buck look for the recession.

Reavis Eitel said...

M&J rules. That window is just the beginning. It's worth flying here just to go. This artist, Christ Tanner, makes all his painting exclusively out of M&J and barters art with them for supplies.

I think it was a very good tin foil job myself. These places are vacant. You can't go in anyplace to browse, salespersons are like zombies hungry for brain.