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\u201cLet\u2019s light it up!\u201d the actress Jennifer Lawrence said on Monday night as she helped to reveal the holiday windows and kick off the annual lights show at Saks Fifth Avenue.<\/p>\n
As is tradition, onlookers crammed behind barricades near 50th Street as performers \u2014 in this case from the Martha Graham Dance Company \u2014 flooded Fifth Avenue. Behind them, nearly 300,000 lights illuminated what is described as a \u201cwheel of fortune\u201d installation, which covered 10 stories of the Saks Fifth Avenue New York flagship facade. The wheel is adorned with zodiac signs and decorated with symbols related to the Dior brand, like the star<\/a> and flowers (for Christian Dior\u2019s love of gardens)<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ms. Lawrence, a longtime Dior ambassador, gathered alongside other actresses, including Tracee Ellis Ross, Rachel Zegler, Ashley Park, Alexandra Daddario, Lola Tung and Maya Hawke. They packed onto bleachers across the street for the show, which included fireworks launched from the roof of the department store.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The traditional and ornate holiday windows, a marketing stalwart that R.H. Macy has been credited with originating in 1874<\/a>, are part of a storied tradition in New York City that has declined in recent years as department stores have closed or moved away from the practice.<\/p>\n The four widely known window displays that remain in Manhattan \u2014 Bloomingdale\u2019s, Saks, Macy\u2019s and Bergdorf Goodman \u2014 continue to exhibit elaborate scenes that can take months to conceive and build.<\/p>\n In interviews, the people who helped craft the displays discussed the themes this year and the inspiration behind each one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n David Hoey, the senior director of visual presentation at Bergdorf Goodman, said that every year the team looks for a theme that is \u201cslightly oblique\u201d but will still provide a surprise factor.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has to be just right,\u201d he said. \u201cNot too specific, not too broad. And related to holiday, if a little bit tangentially.\u201d<\/p>\n For the seven windows at the company\u2019s Fifth Avenue store, they came up with a theme of \u201cIsn\u2019t It Brilliant,\u201d which Mr. Hoey described as \u201cbright lights, bright ideas, bright horizons, everything brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n The displays each feature a m\u00e9lange of sparkly props with subtitles. The window \u201cFirst Light,\u201d for example, refers to dawn and shows crystal balls hovering over farm animals \u2014 two roosters, a cow and a pig \u2014 covered in a similar sparkly exterior. Another window, called \u201cTripping the Light Fantastic,\u201d features creatures resembling Pegasus, the flying horse in Greek mythology.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The mannequins were dressed in designer ensembles from Thom Browne, Balmain, Rodarte, Alexander McQueen, Christopher John Rogers and Paco Rabanne.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n More than a hundred people worked on the displays, Mr. Hoey said, and the installation took about three weeks and 25 people.<\/p>\n Describing the craft of holiday window displays, Mr. Hoey, who has worked on Bergdorf\u2019s windows for over two decades, said, \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit of theater. It\u2019s a little bit of fashion. It\u2019s a little bit of commercial art. It\u2019s an exhibition space, but definitely a public one.\u201d<\/p>\n For the third year in a row, Macy\u2019s blue reindeer, Tiptoe, returns to Herald Square.<\/p>\n The theme for this year\u2019s windows, \u201cGive Love,\u201d is splayed across the company\u2019s storefront on Broadway near 34th Street. The displays focus on \u201ctogetherness and festive nostalgia,\u201d said Manny Urquizo, the national windows director for Macy\u2019s.<\/p>\n The windows center on Tiptoe and her friends in scenes that represent her favorite things from the holiday season. Like a page in a storybook, a short narrative describes the displays and an interactive component animates each one.<\/p>\n In a music-themed window, piano keys snake around a trumpet-playing polar bear. Viewers can play the piano by pressing on a set of keys on the glass. And on a window with a sparkling pink candy carousel, viewers can scan a QR code that directs them to a reindeer filter on Instagram.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Urquizo, who has worked on Macy\u2019s windows for the past four years, said, \u201cI really want that tradition to carry on.\u201d He added, \u201cI bring my kids every year. They\u2019re my harshest critics. But you know, they really enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n This year, Bloomingdale\u2019s teamed with Warner Bros. to create scenes inspired by the upcoming film \u201cWonka,\u201d in which Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet stars as a young Willy Wonka.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re looking at everything through two lenses: How does this delight a child? And how does this just wow the adult?\u201d said John Klimkowski, who is the senior director of visual merchandising at Bloomingdale\u2019s and has worked on the store\u2019s holiday windows for more than a decade.<\/p>\n Mr. Klimkowski said that the team embraced a candyland-like theme, with a hint of Wonka, for the windows on Lexington Avenue near 59th Street. One displays the facade of a candy store (a nod to the 1971 Wonka movie<\/a> starring Gene Wilder), with sparkly interiors, giant cupcakes and swirling lollipops. A working six-tiered chocolate fountain is at the center of the display. One mannequin, dressed like Mr. Wonka with a top hat, a cane and a purple ensemble, motions the viewer to enter the store.<\/p>\n In another window, mannequins with ruffled hair display the effects of candy designed to make people fly or help their hair grow quickly, another reference to the fictional chocolatier\u2019s fantastical creations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A display with a theme of \u201cCandy Wonderlandscape\u201d was produced in collaboration with Abby Modell<\/a>, an artist who specializes in handblown glass. Lollipops and floating rock candies covered in Swarovski crystals hover over glass gummy worms next to giant chocolate drops on top of marshmallows.<\/p>\n \u201cI just hope that for a few minutes, no matter what is going on in the world and someone\u2019s personal life,\u201d Mr. Klimkowski said, \u201cthey can just relax and enjoy the beauty and the spirit of the holidays because it\u2019s once a year.\u201d<\/p>\n This year, the window displays at Saks explore Mr. Dior\u2019s first visit to the United States and New York, in 1947, a trip that ignited<\/a> his fascination with the city.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The collaboration was the first time that Saks had partnered with a luxury fashion house for its holiday display. <\/p>\n In the displays, with the theme of \u201cDior\u2019s Carousel of Dreams at Saks,\u201d miniature figurines of Mr. Dior, who died in 1957, are placed in various scenes of the windows along Fifth Avenue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The windows trace Mr. Dior\u2019s journey from Paris to New York City, fusing references to the fashion house with miniature versions of notable landmarks, such as the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, wrapped in Dior\u2019s Bar jacket<\/a>; and the Rockefeller Center ice rink, with Mr. Dior and his beloved dog, Bobby, on a sled full of perfume bottles. And a model of Times Square<\/a> on New Year\u2019s Eve shows Mr. Dior standing next to a figure of a woman dressed in the fashion house\u2019s signature New Look of 1947<\/a>, which he introduced in his first collection and which helped shape his career.<\/p>\n In one window, a replica of the Saks Fifth Avenue New York flagship is complete with the light installation on the facade, a changing traffic light, a hot-dog stand in the corner and steam rising from the grates.<\/p>\n Andrew Winton, who is the senior vice president of creative at Saks and oversees the window design, said, \u201cIt really has been this devoted group of people from around the world, just hundreds of artisans crafting the story.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s always been this gift to the city.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nBergdorf Goodman<\/h2>\n
Macy\u2019s<\/h2>\n
Bloomingdale\u2019s<\/h2>\n
Saks Fifth Avenue<\/h2>\n