// Selfridges becomes 1st department store in the world to unveil its Christmas windows for 2019
// The “A Christmas For Modern Times”-themed display unveiled by a “new look” Santa
// Each window represents a well-known fairy tale that has been reimagined
Selfridges has just become the world’s first department store to unveil its Christmas windows and full in-store displays for the 2019 festive season.
The theme, “A Christmas For Modern Times”, will be seen across all its stores including London, Birmingham, Manchester and online.
The London store display took a multi-specialist team over 500 hours to produce with over 100 people putting together the windows, working non-stop rotating shifts for 10 days.
Selfridges said the theme reflected on how times may be changing but Christmas remained the same.
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For 2019, Selfridges chose a futuristic vision of Christmas for its theme – titled “Future Fantasy, a Christmas for Modern Times”.
Part of this theme including having an in-store Santa who wore purple and rode a scooter rather than the traditional red coat.
The theme also re-imagines traditional festive stories and tales through a modern lens, as displayed in the new Christmas windows.
Each window essentially displays either a well-known fairy tale or features one particular iconic element from one of them, but re-imagined.
Selfridges’ biggest triple-sided window at the corner of Oxford and Orchard streets in London features a shipwrecked feast among the waves, with a giant moon and moving boat and oars.
Inside the London flagship there is a 3.1mi handrail garland installed around the store as well as 100 bespoke-mirrored Christmas trees.
A giant 1.5 tonne, 42ft-high mirrored Christmas tree hangs in the Oxford Street store’s central atrium – projecting light across the store.
Meanwhile, 49,213ft of LED lights decorate the foliage and handrails inside and outside the London store.
Selfridges is known for starting its Christmas marketing campaigns very early.
In July, it was once again the first retailer in the UK to begin selling Christmas merchandise with the launch of its in-store Christmas shop -149 days before the big day.
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