As a complex and integral part of the modern world, fashion plays an influential role in society, portraying one’s position, both privately and publicly. The store window serves to demonstrate the function of fashion to the public in a manner recreating certain idealized views of society. The different types of stores that exist in our consumer-based society each display different extents of power in their windows, and either retain that power to communicate their message, or give the power to their audience to interpret. Thus it is important to determine who has the power in the outlet of display: the window or the audience? The window controls the power of perception and appearance, it must appeal to the power of its audience and their ability to interpret the window.
The store window display emerged as a major facet of the culture of consumption in the late 1880s, originating along with the department store. According to William Leach, “windows of city retail stores…revealed to [women] an unobtainable world of luxury”. They were meant to initiate a desire within the consumer, and depict an affluent lifestyle that people should strive to achieve, although likely will never quite reach. In the modern consumer society, the domain of power in the fashion window has been transferred from that of the store and its window, to that of the consumer and their interpretation. Jean Baudrillard tells us that today, “every principle of identity is affected by fashion.” Thus interpreting the store windows is based upon one’s personal identity and where they see themselves in relation to the window. (Sydney Kipen 2011).
