This month’s Patricia Fields window features a mannequin wearing emerald green tights, a yellow and black can-can taffeta tutu, and an aqua, magenta, and royal purple sequined horizontally striped tube top. A large cotton-candy colored pink boa bedizened with nickel-sized silver reflective circles is draped over her neck, as electric pink and canary yellow feathered armbands, teal earrings, and a rubber toucan nose, all contribute to her chimerical appearance.
She is crowned with a whopping tangerine, pink, indigo, yellow and cerulean wig designed by Tobel, the in-house wig designer that works out of the hair salon in the basement of Patricia Fields. A marvel in synthetic hair design, this latest creation can only be described as an inspired fusion of Marie Antoinette, Marge Simpson Tina Turner, and a cockatoo.
“I work a lot with birds because I think they’re beautiful,” said Artie Hach, the store's head visual merchandiser, pointing to a dead bird that he used as part of wig for the scarecrow-woman figure also in the same window as the toucan one.
“I added the scarecrow to make the window a little scary -- I was inspired by the movie ‘Jeepers Creepers;’ I’m sexually attracted to the demon,” he added.
Hach went to FIT for exhibition design, but he is an equally talented stylist. He worked with Patricia Fields on seasons 1-4 of “Sex and the City,” earning an Emmy and many skills that have enriched his abilities to outfit the mannequins he uses in his visual merchandising.
“The four years I worked on ‘Sex and the City’ were like a second college and the Emmy was like my degree,” said Hach, who has since also taken on many freelance large-scale window design products for H&M and Macy’s.
Often seen with a ladder, screwdriver, or spare light bulb in his hand, Hach’s job is to maintain the store looking spry and to ensure that products, especially the best-selling ones, are effectively featured.
The second window features a sexy geisha girl being kidnapped by the armageddon creature (a one-eyed scepter wielding monster in a Willy Wonka purple jumpsuit and a pastie over his right nipple) and a biker babe with a Flinstone-sized bone in her hair and a black studded patch over her left eye.
2 comments:
In my opinion, Patricia Fields has the most interesting shop windows in the entire city. They always makes you stop and stare be it in horror or delight.
I blame the demise of window display creativity on the large apparel groups who have pushed out the smaller boutiques from the major shopping areas - they can afford the skyrocketing rents - and put up their cookie cutter stores and corporate "image" on every street corner. Yeah, I like seeing nice photographs of Lucy Liu modelling the latest by the GAP, but I can see that very same photo in any publication. What's the point? A giant eyeball dressed up in a coat and hat, now there's something worth stopping for.
I love sex and the city!
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