THE MODERN PROMETHEUS

bitemagazine:

FEATURE | INTERVIEW WITH LOUIS VUITTON’S NYC VISUAL MERCHANDISING TEAM

BITE Magazine sits down with Terri Stevens and Steven Anderson, the two minds behind the visual merchandising for fashion powerhouse Louis Vuitton in NY, to discuss their inspirations, the power of bloggers and the creativity behind the brand.

For this new window installation, what was the main inspiration?

SA: A lot of our direction trickles down from Paris, so all of our windows are kind of consented through that first and then brought to North America, where we tweak and translate it to work in our specific space and customer.  Right now, we are trying to focus back on the company’s heritage which is one of our core values: the art of travel.

Have the installations been affected by the economic decline? 

SA: Not at all!

TS: We do better in a bad economy. Only certain stores can get away with that, though. If you really have the keen eye, your eye will be attracted to a lot of things. [Other companies] will re-purpose things over and over again. Well, here, once we are done with something, we are done.  

SA: I think in tough times with not so creative budgets, you’re really challenged to be creative. When there are lower budgets, you do better work.

TS: When you have a big budget, of course, the sky’s the limit but a creative person loves that challenge of being able to start from scratch. That’s when you go out and start going inspiration shopping.

Do you feel that when bloggers write about your windows, it affects the work in anyway? Would you say that they set the bar as to what is new and trendy at the moment?

TS: I think it works both ways; it’s a universe that works together. Since we’ve had these elevated windows, it has gone global and the bloggers let us know if we are on our game or not and I think we are on our game so far. Now we are trying to live up to a standard. We want to be on the next blog. This window went viral and I think it has increased traffic. It already had a lot of traffic but I think because of the attention it received, people are not only coming to New York to see the Statue of Liberty, they also stop to see our window.

SA: I can honestly say (and it’s not just because I work for the company) that the few windows we’ve done have been the most premiere windows on 5th Avenue for the past year.

What advice would you give to current students to aspire to make it into this market?

TS: The schools hate when I say this, but I don’t think you can teach [creativity]. People can learn a skill but it’s either in there or not. I think you can train an eye but I still think in the end, you’re missing something.

SA:  Like Terri said, you can train an eye but you have that innate sense already. It’s like that one extra piece of a display that really blows your hair back and you’re like: “I get it”.

TS: You can really make it sing.

What is your definition of power?

TS: I think that we exude power through visual presentation all the time. We dictate how the product is going to be sold - that’s what visual merchandising is. We have to have the innate sense to say: “This isn’t working. Where can we move it? What can we do to it to produce sales?” We manipulate our power, or use it, daily.

SA: We really control certain aspects of consumerism and it’s all done by the way that you display something. I think that says a lot right there. That’s pretty powerful.

Text: Mayra A. Flores
Photography: © Sergio Mejia (Fifth Avenue store, Sept 2011)

More photography of the window installation can be seen on our Facebook page.

(via monstreux)