Hermes, Dubai

We do love these big window spaces here in the Dubai Mall, although no doubt these are really hard work to manage and tonnes of time spent on implementation.  Here at Hermes, skiers appear to be flying through clouds rather than snow right in among these Silver birches.  OK, its a little unrealistic if we think too hard about it although it does actually work incredibly we we thought from a visual perspective?  

John Lobb, Dubai

Wow, what a great scheme here at John Lobb.  Men's shoes sadly are usually the poor relation of the products when it comes to presentation, but clearly not for much longer.  There is a John Lobb store in London although we have never seen such a great installation there as we have here.  Of course what is difficult to appreciate in a still image is that there is movement here as the hands emulate the craftsmanship and attention to detail that this product obviously has.  It is a little reminiscent of the 'Elves and the Shoemaker', but what the hell, it looks fantastic.

Scotch and Soda, Dubai

We have seen this scheme back in London on our travels and do love this kind of colour swatch effect that the guys have created here.  A very simple scheme and so easy to transport around the world yet has quite a lot of impact, don't you think?  A good example of the gravitational and radiation format of product handling dynamics.

Harvey Nichols, Dubai

Oh we don't know either and yes we love it too.  OK, well large format lettering is a cheap option to fill a massive space but, yes it does look great.  With such enormous window spaces we know how hard it is to fill these but if you happen to be here in the Mall of the Emirates do look at them from a distance as they do have enormous impact.  What more can we say about it?

Bloomingdales, Dubai

After a marathon flight courtesy of Emirates airlines, which incidentally is really very good if you have never flown with them before, we have finally landed in the gorgeous and welcomed warmth of Dubai.  Ahhhhh.  Well, first stop is the Dubai Mall which is still (we think) the worlds largest shopping mall?  It really is exhausting walking around here as it is so enormous but you know how much we suffer for our Art.  Here at Bloomingdale's they are asking us which side are you on?  No, not in the same way as 'Which side of the church are sat on?' or 'Which team do you play for?' if you get our drift, but 'Are you up town or down town?' (maybe that has slightly worse connotations?)  Here we have a largely stripey space separated by a 'glass' screen and in some places creating this faux perspective.  It does look great of course but then these guys clearly invest in their teams to produce such a quality output.

Carsch Haus, Dusseldorf

This is another department store which we could only skim passed as time hasn't allowed us to hang out here for very long but we did want to capture the zeitgeist of this city somehow.  OK, well we've seen the Butterflies glued to wall countless times before but we felt that at least they had made some effort here to create some interest.  What do you think?  Its quite cold here at the moment so tomorrow we are off to the warmer climate of the middle east.  It is winter there also but we have a feeling we will be like those lizards warming up on a rock somewhere trying to get some heat into our bones.

Golden Eyes. Dusseldorf

We thought that we would include this tiny little retailer called Golden Eyes Opticians as we really quite liked the repetition of these heads in so many different colours.  It is of course slightly creepy and perhaps a little 'Total Recall' but it is nonetheless great to see that even this store makes so much effort to show their wares. 

Jades, Dusseldorf

We were quite drawn to these windows as we saw them from a distance.  A very simple scheme using neon lighting in various hand gestures in front of which the product has been placed.  Sadly this is another one that we didn't have time to view in more detail but at least you get the giste of what they are about.

Apropos, Dusseldorf

On our very brief travels around Dusselfdorf we did manage to find this Uber cool boutique; Apropos.  Don't you just love these windows?  Rather similar in style to Bergdorfs we thought?  Anyway, showcasing there super new mannequin collection 'aloof' by Bonaveri, these ones have been covered in a mountain of different coloured birds.  Great collection and fantastic presentation here.

Peek and Cloppenburg, Dusseldorf

We included this brands store a while ago on a visit to Berlin.  We have to say that the windows actually always look great but the interiors are quite dull by comparison really and appear like large airline hangers.  Anyway, celebrating Berlin Fashion week Peek and Cloppenburg look cool, although the merchandise could have been rather more interesting, don't you think?

Galeria Kaufhof, Dusseldorf

We've never seen or heard of Galeria Kaufhof before but what a treat it is....;o)  OK, well its not Harvey Niks or Bergdorfs but what a luxury these window spaces are.  Most will kill for the space these guys have.  We weren't quite sure about the content however and where these guys are coming from but we guess a little bit of fancy dress tickles the bits of the locals here?  There is clearly a raw talent in place but there is possibly a long journey to get to the dizzy heights of the likes of Lafayette, Selfridges and De Bijenkorf?

Eickhoff, Dusseldorf

If you have had enough of Euroshop then you can do no worse than have a quick look around the city centre here in Dusseldorf.  This is the first time ever that we have managed to have a poke around to see what was twitching on the fash. front and we were actually rather surprised what it has to offer.  Our previous experience of the city has been very limited and although we aren't going to spend a holiday here any time soon it does surprisingly have a lot of shopping places on offer, and interesting ones at that.  Here at Eickhoff, we found this fantastic installation with these incredible faux perspectives and amazing merchandise.  What our European neighbours don't really 'get' however is that shoes should be worn my mannequins not simply placed next to their feet (we're ignoring the mannequin groupings for now).  It was a buttock clenching moment but we have to say we are surprised to see such a quality installation anyway in this city.

Euroshop, Germany

This week just about anyone and everyone within the retail and visual merchandising industry from around the world has descended on Dusseldorf here in Germany for Euroshop.  We are exhausted by the size of this venue and couldn't possibly include everything that we have seen, so here's an overview of some of the exciting bits.  

What is more noticeable than ever before is how guarded everyone is about their latest collections.  So much so that if you happen to be remotely Asian in appearance or perhaps working for an Asian company then the chances of getting onto some of these stands is ever thinly sliced.  Sadly it seems, allegedly of course, that the experience of some of these companies is that within a matter of 'hours' their work appears on Chinese websites and up for sale at a fraction of the cost.  We cant verify this as it is purely anecdotal evidence and there really isn't enough time in our lives to follow every single product shown here and neither does it interest us to do so, although simultaneously it doesn't surprise us either.  OK, well design theft is nothing new and will possibly never go away particularly if one doesn't have ones own legacy of design history to protect, in which case why would anyone care anyway?  Our own feeling with this is that if one is truly creative enough then another bus load of ideas will come along anyway so why worry; this is not said flippantly and we realise that it is very easy to say it.  This blog site has also been directly copied in China, but then without the real critical voice how can it ever be a threat?  It also rather amuses us. 

It is of course frustrating when ideas and designs are stolen and of course this can generate financial ruin.  In the meantime, while the theft of work is despicable sadly the 'Chinese' (as in the ones visiting here) are being very obviously excluded.   With ever greater spending power, it seems China will become an even bigger force in the world and clearly determined to get there fast.  The shameless theft of design and industrial sabotage is hurting us all and even we were faced with hostility by our own British counterparts  Thankfully our Britishness (or probably Brutishness) got us passed the gatekeepers but it took a lot more of 'working the floor' to get there than ever before.  This selective presentation of the latest offerings tarnished our visit even if we did see some amazing new 'things'.  We will get over it of course, well, we already are but in the meantime it is an interesting insight to where we are headed, even if its just culturally as well as creatively.