Douglas Little, creative director at Dell, has been working on bejewelling laptops. In the middle of the ‘great recession’ Bergdorf Goodman, mecca of luxury, is not holding back it’s typical fare and indeed seems to be entering new depths. The new Adamo laptop is the hero of this month’s window displays on Fifth Avenue. Bejewelled laptops glisten and sparkle in the laps of exotic near eastern Amiras, or dangle from the manicured nails of maharajettes on mattresses. It is interesting to observe Dell going after this high market level, despite the rains of recession, the ever growing depths of poverty in the world and the shift of post-post-modern design towards a ‘real’ world experience. I guess these little trinkets will not be the sort to be languishing on particle board or communal library desktops. Theirs is to be a life lived sitting on marble, antique parquetry, leather and lacquered walnut.
But it’s easy to get caught up in the morals of bejewelled laptops and forget the luscious theatrics in the window. Tales of technology unfold in a scene that tickles with laptop puns as observed by a worldly wise, and it seems well healed, Mr and Mrs Bunny. Alternately the well strapped, and strapping, loved up couple Mr and Ms Mouse seem to be getting on with the business of indulgence. whereby observing the ‘seductively slim’ laptop to ‘seduce the senses’ …though only momentarily between amorous adventures.
Kudos to the merchandising team and window dressers for the art of it all. Wonderful fabrics appear from the house of Jim Thompson, including Thai silks. Chrystal elements are from Swarovski’s Chrystallized [whose site is incidentally heavily engaged in support of Charity Water's work with third world communities deprived of safe drinking water]. Rugs are from ABC Carpet&Home. The luscious pillows in the orient scene are by Michele Varian.
What the future holds’ in ‘divine disguise’ would seem to be a laptop with pretty casing. ‘The webmaster’ in us all perhaps may be seduced, or perhaps will remain true to our inner macbook pro, but the show in the windows again is astoundingly entertaining, theatrical… and free.
