Eric Ravilious – windows – one train ticket only needed for a great view … but also there’s the question of shopping …
I have to admit I do like window shopping – along with millions of others. I’m more interested in how things are displayed in shop windows rather than just rushing in to be a consumer of what’s on offer. These, sometimes brilliant, displays of a transitory nature are often overlooked from an artistic point of view. They soon disappear because ‘the new’ fuels ‘want to have’. I set out to capture a few displays on my travels to give them a slightly longer life.
Ribbons, bows and red petals near Marylebone
I used to work between Green Park and Piccadilly for some years and I still feel this is my stamping ground and wonder how often since then I have stepped in my tracks of long ago. Bond Street always has an array of eye catching shop windows. The french word for window shopping is lèche-vitrines and an amusing picture of people doing this in Bond Street comes to mind – I did a lot of this in the past.
Bond Street – we are all related to dinosaurs one way or another … ?! But what’s in its (her) glamorous handbag?
Travelling light just off Bond Street- trains and boats and planes …
Watches for sale 1
Watches for sale – and a man in pink … maybe for sale too but he doesn’t look quite as expensive?!
Bond Street California style …
What’s the story? So many symbols – what lies behind the umbrella – who would wear gold emblazoned black velvet slippers? And what clever person invented scissors?
Another affluent relation close by Aspreys of Bond Street
Tiffany of Bond Street
Ortigia – I have decamped to Sicily via Sloane Square – colourscape and fragrances of the Mediterranean on offer …
Trapped inside a window looking out … and back in Britain – as noted
The display that jumped out of the window – a favourite place on Monmouth Street, Covent Garden … nearby is Stanfords travel bookshop – always a delight ..
Spirals in Farringdon … intriguing offices
‘Here’s looking at you kid’ – in edgy Toronto. Window dressing on the wall.
That says it all …
Mustn’t forget Knightsbridge cool …
Michelin man at Moncler with snow and flying saucers. How weird is that?
Les fromages de France – Ile St-Louis, Paris – just out of reach!
Rocket science at Fortnum & Mason
And I have to add something not altogether in a shop window – but both beautifully presented and transitory nevertheless.
Octopus at ‘Madisons’ by St. Paul’s cathedral …
It was simply delicious! (I know it’s not the thing to take pictures of your lunch but it reminds me to go back and have it again).
This is all about the transience of advertising, which can be visually brilliant but must continually reinvent itself.
And the best come last – these windows by Fortnum and Mason just blew me away. Their many varieties of tea are for sale on the ground floor. A cup of tea, whatever its provenance, is always a great comfort to most of us, wherever we drink it.
Tea time on Piccadilly … at Fortnum & Mason
Every cup tells a story … framed against a London taxi and The Royal Academy..
Even elephants on Piccadilly love tea …
An exotic cuppa for a London cabbie …
Bowing out in a blaze of glory – teatime is special at Fortnum & Mason!
I could keep going but advertising has its time and its place – and it’s time for me to move on …