This means that you aren't truly doing a feature display of a dress, or coat, or sweater, if you haven't accessorized it or in some other way suggested a variety of accessories that can be worn with it.
Nor have you done a feature display of an accessory until you have shown it against a background that suggests appropriate apparel, and possibly other related accessories, in order to give the customer the whole picture.
If you sell apparel, borrow appropriate accessories to display with the styles you feature. Let the customer see the whole look. If you sell accessories, borrow some article of apparel against which to show your merchandise.
If you sell intimate apparel, let at least one of your feature displays relate foundations and daywear to outerwear fashions.
If you have difficulty borrowing apparel, or lack the space to use it in display, try a length of fabric in a current color and texture, and use it as a background for accessories.
In an intimate apparel department, a length of dress fabric can be draped over half of a bust form or T-stand on which featured bras or slips are shown.
Select the apparel fabric for your display not merely for color, but also for construction, texture, and draping qualities currently used in apparel.
Your display should answer the customer's question of what to wear with or under the new dresses, sweaters, blouses, or other garments.
Relating to Ads and Windows
It goes without saying that your feature displays will relate to any ads and windows devoted to your department's merchandise.
If your ads or windows have brought the fashion-hungry shopper to your department, she should see a posted ad and a display that pro claim: "Here is the item you came to see".
You can relate also, through display, to ads and windows of other departments.
If dresses, or sweaters, or coats, are in the windows, and you sell accessories, try to get one of the featured garments, or a sketch, or even a sign, into a departmental display that shows how your merchandise looks with the window apparel.
If accessories are featured in the window and you sell dresses, or sweaters, or coats, give prominence to one of your best accepted styles and show how it can be dressed up with the window scarves, or gloves, or jewelry.
Remember that the fashion customer does not buy an item; she buys a look. Your departmental displays should keep reminding her that your merchandise is part of that look.
Locations for Displays
Feature displays should get maximum drama and visibility. If you get that maximum drama and visibility at the back of your department rather than at the entrance, then place your featured displays there, unless a store rule prevents this.
Use niches, ledges, counter areas - any place that the geography of your department suggests and store policy permits.
Make your decision about where to locate feature displays in terms of how quickly and inevitably the customer's eye is likely to travel to the spot you select.
Be careful of child-traffic in branches.
Some suburban customers shop with children following them about. Displays in such stores should be out of the path of small running feet and preferably out of reach of small hands.
Substitutes for Manikins
Manikins are ideal for feature displays, but you can't always get them. And sometimes you may have only worn or out-of-date figures or just not enough space for any manikin at all.
These are some alternatives.
A section of wall can be painted white or neutral, with a spotlight trained on it. Pegboard has real advantages for the purpose. Pin or hang garments against the wall and place accessories on or alongside the garments.
A board can be painted or covered, and set at an angle to the floor, so that it rises at about 30 degrees or less from the horizontal. On it pin or drape a garment, or piece of fashion fabric as a background for an accessories grouping.
Boards can be used on platforms, ledges, or wherever else you find space. Set them at whatever angle with the horizontal will give the customer a good view of the merchandise. The higher from the floor, the more nearly perpendicular the board has to be.
Use the area under your glass counters, if yours is a department like hosiery, gloves, or cosmetics. There may not be room for a dress, but you can make interesting arrangements of fabrics, scarves, blouses, sweaters, as a background for your merchandise.
The trick is to make as much of your display as possible a fashion "look" story, not just a display of hosiery, gloves, jewelry, scarves, or whatever you sell.
T-stands, racks, loops, and any other counter-top fixtures can be used imaginatively. Instead of merely hanging a scarf on a T-stand, for example, tie it to suggest an ascot, or let the long ends trail on the counter to emphasize the importance of length.
A straight chair has great possibilities. Toss a garment casually over the seat or back and drop a few related accessories on top of it. A slipper chair is fine for nightwear and lingerie.
With ingenuity, almost anything that comes to hand can be converted into a useful prop for a feature display.
Sources of Ideas
If you train yourself to be alert to good display ideas, you will find boundless inspiration almost everywhere you turn. Adapt what you see to your own needs.
Adapt, but don't copy exactly. Your display ideas must speak to your customer, in her language, to deliver your message.
Sources of ideas:
- your own store's interiors and windows
- your store's display director and fashion coordinator
- your own assistants and salespeople, some of whom may have special gifts in this direction
- your resident buying office market representative, who will know what other departments like your own are doing, and with what success
- resources, their showroom displays, their reports of what other stores are doing successfully with their line
- interiors and windows of other stores, especially those in market cities
- illustrations in fashion magazines and business publications. Keep an idea file of clippings and notes. Looking through it when you are hungry for a new idea is a good way to start your mental machinery working on the problem.
