Thursday 8 April 2010

Starting the Research: First Stop - Juicy Couture

In all the rush and excitement of arriving in New York City, we had spent the first day focusing on the tourist side of things, forgetting our real purpose of being there: Research. Our future project will be to write and advertisement brief for an American Brand launching in the UK. We decided to split Manhattan into three sections: Uptown, Midtown and Downtown and we would try to get into as many stores as possible, taking notes on the differences in visual merchandising and the in store environment.

We started to make our way up Fifth Avenue and stopped firstly at Juicy Couture. We were enticed in by the exciting window display that was fitted with a circus theme. There were mannequins styled like jesters with long pointed hats and huge over sized shoes, swinging from trapezes and balancing on tight ropes. There was a cage with mannequins inside with the heads of tigers, peering out through the bars. Amazingly, a huge long legged mannequin on stilts was placed in the shop window that was nearly two stories high, wearing the iconic Juicy Couture sweat pant, specially designed with extra long legs.


Inside the store, the visual merchandising was fantastic, unlike anything I have seen in England. It seemed to be touching on traditional English heritage, whilst playfully adding a twist of humour. There was a spiral staircase with a gold suit of armour guarding in the corner and a mounted deer head on the wall was decorated with Juicy jewellery and make up. The underwear was stored as in Victoria's Secret in an antique looking chest of drawers and there were paintings on the walls of fox hunts and the English countryside.


The staff in store were eager to talk to us when they found out we were Fashion Students and it was a friendly and welcoming in store environment.

1 comment:

  1. There was a cage with mannequins inside with the heads of tigers, peering out through the bars. Amazingly, a huge long legged mannequin on stilts was placed in the shop window that was nearly two stories high, wearing the iconic Juicy Couture Outlet sweat pant, specially designed with extra long legs.

    ReplyDelete