Sealed Storefronts and Innocent Cocktails

Storefront window displays are potent tools that retail businesses use to seduce consumers passing by. Zola’s description of Jean’s reaction to the storefront window displays is similar to my reaction to window display’s in Florence, Italy. These windows are so easily consumed that the aggressive techniques deployed by the stores go un-noticed such as the extremely intense light fixtures required to reflect enough light, or how the accessories and clothing are carefully arranged to appear spontaneous or precisely calculated. “Don’t be afraid, blind them! Come on! He wanted landslides of cloth tumbling as though it had been accidentally emptied out the the boxes, blazing with the most intense colors”[1]

Another thing that contributes to the seductive appearance of the window display is the ability for it to appear so perfect, sealed by glass from the elements it remains in mint condition unlike anything else adjacent to it. For example if you walk to work and pass storefront displays it might be raining, street signs might crooked, trash collects on the street curb, but the window display remains pristine, well lit, untouched whether it is 8:00 am or midnight. Historic city centers are progressively becoming more like outdoor malls, specifically Florence. In this aspect sometimes Florence feels like a frozen city with blocks and blocks of storefronts super pristine plugging into Gothic and Renaissance architecture.

Easterling’s introduction to Enduring Innocence is densely packed with material pertaining to architecture’s role in larger territories. I am interested in the “mixology between cocktails and cultural attributes that may create a territory that is at once strange and intimate, exposed and disguised, real and fictional.” Cocktails are the abstract, unfamiliar, non-spatial, i(n the traditional sense), parameters such as ‘ocean temperatures, time needed for a shopping spree, etc.’ Whereas cultural attributes are social practices specific to particular regions and cultures such as tailgating in parking lots on football game days. Too quickly malls, big box retail, and parking lots are passed off by critics as homogenous territory that is the same which makes it appear fictional or strange. At the same time people appropriate space to suit there needs and tendencies. Therefore aspects of a mall or a parking lot become very intimate.

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[1] Zola, Emile The Lady’s Delight. Peguin Books 2001. p. 48