Each year over the holiday season, I enjoy visiting London to see the Christmas lights, the decorations, and the window displays. I posted a couple of weeks ago about London's Christmas Lights for 2016. This post is about London's Christmas window displays. I cover Fortnum & Mason, Liberty, John Lewis, and Selfridges. I don't often make it to Harrods to see their Christmas window displays. The clear winner this year was Liberty department store.
Liberty Department Store's display this year featured "The Nutcracker". This type of window display was similar to the ones that I had previously seen on a visit to New York City, which I thought were done very well and had a very Christmasy theme. The pieces also moved with a man in a cape spinning around and a ballet dancer. There were also toy soldiers and mice that moved, and the mice fell down when 'shot' by the soldiers.
John Lewis's department store on Oxford Street used their theme with the woodland creatures and dog from the advertisement this year. The dog is above ground, looking into a hole, and most of the scenes take place underground with squirrels on moving trains full of gifts and hedgehogs and foxes with other gifts inside the underground tunnels.
Selfridges department store's window displays featured Santa and other costumed figures in different poses, such as on a ski lift, with a giant polar bear, in a hot tub, outside of a plane, and parachuting. In each display, Santa and the other characters are surrounded by gifts. In the large corner window, a giant item that looks like a Christmas cracker with a lot of sparks (made with neon lights) flying out of it is on display.
Fortnum & Mason's display featured characters, such as a wolf and turkey in festive poses. The wolf blows on a trumpet with sheep singing in chorus near him, and the turkey helps a characterised knife remove a cork from a bottle of bubbly. The windows on the side also feature their Christmas hampers. All of the pairings are unlikely as the characters join together for the festive season. The store used the tagline "together we're merrier" in order to bring people together after a difficult year.
Some of London's previous window displays are below:
2015 Christmas ligths and window displays
2014 Christmas window displays
2013 Christmas window displays
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