Judging a store by its display

Walking the streets of New York last weekend--one of my favourite things to do--I hit upon something. As a rule of thumb, I can tell whether or not I will be able to afford to shop in any given clothing store depending on what its window display contains.

• the fewer articles of clothing there are in the window display, the less likely I will be able to afford it
• the more props that were specifically made for a window display, the less likely I will be able to afford it.
• the less the decorative/background pieces have to do with clothing, the less likely I will be able to afford it.

Examples?

GAP - rows of headless mannequins against a simple backdrop, wearing full outfits--everything you see is available in store.

JUICY COUTURE - two or three mannequins dressed sparsely in Juicy Couture clothing, being tied and strung up by an army of miniature wooden Beefeater soldiers, complete with fuzzy hats...on everyone.

ANTHROPOLOGIE - (this is not the display I saw nor am describing, but it's the same store) 2 mannequins, sparsely dressed, surrounded by swirls of long, narrow, yellow and orange plastic strips (or in this case, no mannequins, surrounded by an igloo or jugs)

Of the three, I could probably afford to show at the first, MAYBE the second. Most likely NOT the third.

So, using this rule of thumb, we perused the windows of New York, judging which stores we could or couldn't afford to even consider. We got a good number of giggles out of a lot of our judgments. At some point, we passed a window display showcasing a full set of flatware and cutlery; black plates and silver settings. Of course I couldn't resist the wiseass comment:

    "Man, if this store sold clothes, I DEFINITELY wouldn't be able to afford them!


We laughed our way past a second window display of the exact same black plates and silver cutlery, all the way around the corner to the front of the store where we glanced in again.

    "Oh fuck they DO sell clothes in here."

There was maybe one item of clothing on each rack in the huge store. The picture I scavenged below from the internet in an attempt to illustrate has too much clothing to do it justice.



I could NOT afford to walk into that store.