Gap is well known for its minimalist windows, where moods, seasons and themes are reduced to symbols with mannequins in front of them. It comes as no surprise then, that Gap’s store halfway along Oxford Street features white, abstract Christmas trees that have been internally illuminated.

This is a simple, eye-catching design that has the added bonus of highlighting the stock in front of it – the bulk of which is neutral in tone featuring browns, blacks and creams. The only concession to real colour is the stylised snowflake with a centre that features blue lights.

The danger with this kind of scheme is that retailers can end up with something that looks bland, but in this case the sheer shock of white light from the trees ensures that this doesn’t happen. This is one of central London’s brightest windows and passers-by were certainly stopping to look and then entering the store – surely the purpose of any effective display scheme.

In the next issue of Retail Week, we review London’s seasonal windows, looking at the Christmas crackers as well as the real turkeys and assess their strength as crowd-pleasers.

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