a field trip...

This was not my first visit to an Anthropologie shop so I was greatly anticipating finding out more about how the stores go about creating these unique "sets". Anthropologie offers women's clothing and accesories and also offers house"wears" to accessorize one's home. The concept alone makes this a unique place. Parts of the store's displays are permanent but most are temporary and moveable. Some store sets are more permanent than others, for instance the summer set is very short. Window sets vary between 9-10 weeks and 4-6 depending on holidays and seasons. Anthropologie as a whole has a team of designers and architects who deside the floor plan of new stores. There are different firms for different stores and different concepts as well. For new seasons, corporate headquaters sends packets of inspiration, photos, videos, and stories of personalities that differents concepts in the store should depict. But the sets of each store are left mainly up to the managers of each individual store. Many of the displays and units are built by the visual assistants who work in the store creating and building.

Three of the main devices anthropology uses to captivate their customers and draw them into and through their space are SCENT, SIGHT, SOUND. The differnt regions of the store represent concepts like: "city-country", "root cellar", "quava", "linen closet", "penelope", and "bonn street". Corporate encourages all the employees and designers to "get to know them" in order to design the spaces. They also use bubble diagrams to layout the spaces and each concept area. There was very little signage in the space but when they do have signage part of it is from home office while they do make some in-store, especially little tags for products for sale.

The manager is given a budget to buy some of the pieces they use in the store to create the sets. They are forced to be very creative because their budget is so small. They keep everything and recycle alot as well. They find that recycling and being creative is very valuable. Many of the pices that house the merchandise are old antiques that are also for sale. They use texturizers ( guinea pig pellets, sand, potporie, recycled bits of stuff) to add another dimension to the sets.

Front and focal is a term used for the placement of new and best selling merchandise. They use the "pinball effect" delibertly to keep the customers "bumping" in to products instead of moving straight to the back to the sale items. They use 3 points of interest to inspire browsing and draw the cutomers in and through the space. They are also known as points of DRAMA. The register is the customers last experience so the to try to make sure it is a happy and positive one.