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The shop, at this writing, has only been open for a week, so I cannot state that it has far out-distanced its competitors, but I know that it achieved a more immediate response.
The same thing is true of a small dressmaker who took a studio on the top floor of a business building, formerly unsuccessfully occupied by a photographer, and who completely draped her walls and ceilings in salmon fabric and silvered her woodwork, decorating it later with modern Oriental figures in color.
It seems undeniable that for even the most unlet-
Page 106a
A shop of two stories in which the staircase which we constructed divides the lower floor into two halves, the front of which is seen in the illustration. This is in the style of Louis XVI, and is intended for the sale of millinery.
Page 106b
This sketch was prepared for the use of a wholesale dress manufacturer. The walls are done in marbleized effect in
several colors, with columns representing lapis lazuli, surmounted by boxes containing
electric lights with reflectors and metal ivy leaves.
Page 107
THE DECORATION OF SHOPS 107
tered a certain sensation, pleasurable or otherwise, attaches to the surroundings in which they make their purchases, and this, while not always powerful, is just sufficient to make most people prefer an agreeably decorated place to one that is less agreeable, for shopping.
The fitting up of a show window has long been recognized as a very important matter commercially, but I feel that too little emphasis has been laid on its beauty, and too much upon its mere effectiveness. Many successful windows are either overcrowded or too bare; and color and lighting, which might be made to play as significant a part here as they do upon the stage, are almost always commonplace. All the window backgrounds used by prominent shops are too much alike too many in ivory, too many in uninterestingly panelled walnut or mahogany, far too many in ordinary casement cloth. Let us be daring for once, even if we have to change our windows every week. It is our very best advertisement.
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