Bergdorf Goodman’s window displays in New York City during the Christmas/New Year’s holiday season are invariably sumptuous and magnificent. However, this year B.G. has outdone itself. Their new windows — each one a grand Victorian collage or cabinet of curiosities — explore the theme of travel in a splendidly extravagant manner, marrying engraved old maps (both terrestrial and celestial) with telescopes, compasses, globes, ship models, Zodiacal animals (many of them tours de force of paper sculpture), stage sets that might have come from the works of Jules Verne and Georges Méliès, and enough antique machinery fragments to delight the hearts of an army of steampunks. In this gorgeous panoply, David Hoey and his associates have realized the voyaging vision of Joseph Cornell.
Into the city and all the way up to the museum of the American Indian to find it closed! Compensation in the buoyant feeling aroused by the buildings of the Geographical Society in their quiet uptown setting. An abstract feeling of geography and voyaging I have thought about before of getting into objects, like the Compass Set with map. — From the journals of Joseph Cornell
Further description would be superfluous.
For a holiday treat, go to the links (below) to view the windows; better still, visit them in person, at the Bergdorf Goodman store on the west side of Fifth Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets in Manhattan (after dark is the optimal viewing time, if you can bundle up to withstand the cold).
http://fourthfloorwalkup.com/?tag=david-hoey
For a short video showing the making of the B.G. holiday windows, go to:
The Making of Bergdorf Goodman’s 2010 Holiday Windows
(With the exception of quotations & links, all text & artwork created & copyright © by Eric Edelman. All rights reserved.)
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