Saturday 13 August 2016

Don't close your eyes - when window displays gone wrong - #1

Sometimes you see something that is so truly bizarre that you simply stop and gawp at it. I took the photo above on Wednesday in  tat shop in France. My daughter (who is 19) pointed and said "That is really scary".  Clearly the shop owner was hoping to sell the dollies and must be commended for a good ethnic mix, but the effect was to produce a rather menacing display that seemed to be saying "don't mess with us pal!" (or whatever the equivalent was in French).

Over the years I've seen a few window displays gone wrong. There used to be a bakers in Deansbrook Road called "The Crusty Roll". In the window, they would always have a trays of tasty cakes. What could possibly go wrong? Sadly in the summer, the cakes would prove to be a wasp magnet and as you walked past, you'd see cakes covered in wasp gorging themselves, treating creamcakes as we treat a jacuzzi.

Another display that amuses me is a cafe I pass walking from Farringdon to Smithfield Market.Every morning at 7.30am they put a selection of their finest tasty dishes out in a display case. Sadly by the time I pass at lunchtime, the dishes look a little less fresh and I suspect have the opposite effect.

I still remember a clothes shop on the Harrow road. They had bought some mannequins to display dresses and coats. The mannequins had head shapes with no facial details or hair. The owner had clearly thought this didn't look right, so had drawn on faces rather badly. What topped it was the extremely cheap, ill fitting wigs. The net result was that even if the clothes had been the finest known to man, you wouldn't notice, as the display was simply hilarious.

Anyway, at the Barnet Eye, we have been inspired so we will be on the lookout for bad window displays in our Bourough. Let me know if you spot one! The rules are simple. They must be awful and it must be pretty obvious that the owners of the shop haven't noticed!




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This shop was where Carluccios is now, in The Spires. https://flic.kr/p/iAs2Jc

JVK said...

https://c4.staticflickr.com/6/5513/11547904643_6de8c9c9a5_z.jpg

https://c4.staticflickr.com/3/2850/11547746035_c01a711a60_z.jpg