While festive shopping is more likely to be online this year, a tour around the window displays of stores is a pandemic-friendly way of bringing sparkle in the run-up to the big day.
There will be no cosy photo op with a random stranger in a cotton-wool beard in Santa’s grotto this year. Nor any carol singers to soothe your frayed festive nerves. And even the most hardened bargain hunters are going to feel less than gung ho about bustling through crowds in search of the perfect gift. Pandemics have a way of sucking the joy out of most things – and Christmas shopping is no exception.
And yet: let there be light. All is not lost, because the Christmas store window, rich in tradition of pomp, pageantry and fever-pitch overexcitement, is making a last-minute attempt to bring some joy to the high street. Window dressing, an art form with a long and illustrious heritage that boasts Giorgio Armani, Andy Warhol and Salvador Dalí as alumni, is attempting to bring a happy ending for what has been an annus horribilis for retail.
On the corner of Sloane Street and Knightsbridge, Harvey Nichols’ window sells nothing more expensive than optimism. There are no products, just “BRING ON 2021” spelled out in fairground lights, alongside a disco ball and a couple of snowflakes.