The Holiday Windows |Liberty- The Tree of Liberty

26/11/2019

I love Liberty and its entire history, I love its old and rickety interiors, am obsessed with its Tudor facade and how indoors feels like going to your grandmama’s house with a hodgepodge of fabulousness going on. And I really wanted to love this window.

The Tree of Liberty explores a magical time when snow flakes fell upward, an all seeing owl imagined said tree and the branches were adorned with gifts of all kinds for all occasions and all ages.

It has taken me ten days to realise that I do not love it as much as I thought I did on sight, actually it is my least favourite window of all the windows from the big five this season. There is a lot going on and not a lot of it makes sense; it looks messy, stuff is being dumped all around, random things one collects. Thematically its honest I guess but it just lacks something.

Nice idea, but poorly executed.

If this is a tree during Christmas, and if its not going to be a traditional christmas tree then it should have some semblance or link to the season. This didn’t. If this is the colour during Christmas it should be the traditional green, red, white and black anything outside of that and we run into problems and it is not in the shape of a christmas tree then its an even bigger problem. One could neither make head or tail of what exactly was going on because there was a lot going on; animals and clothes, accessories and all sorts. Oh and there was a peacock involved somewhere. Search me. But it was a tree of wonders so in that world it probably makes sense still…

I’m obviously conflicted because this is an other worldly concept but It felt more superfluous than festive; be obvious and christmassy and cheesy and bright and cheerful, but in the name of difference have something that sticks. A pink and purple velvet with a tree hanging high up in the middle of your store with roots spreading like a beanstalk to your windows is not entirely it. Still, pop into the store to see said tree, its quite a spectacle.