Figurations

Toulouse, august 2009.

For some, it is very often, indeed every day. For others, it is rather on saturdays. All of them walk down the street and, above all, they quiver with the idea to go shopping. Buying the last very fashionable accessory, finding the same clothes as a friend but cheaper, changing one’s look, looking like one’s favorite star… Motivations are diverse, but all are oriented toward the same hope: being surprised by an unexpected encounter, finding the real gem.
That day, those who faced with this shopwindow were not disappointed. Unlike others they usually look at, this window clearly laid one’s cards on the table. Instead of displaying the leading goods available inside the shop in a more or less conventional manner, it specifically exploited the customers’ curiosity. By attracting their attention on the uncomplete presentation of clothes, the sign explicitly seek to make the passers-by enter the shop and see what was not displayed yet.
The force of the sign was even more intense. Writing and displaying that the “shopwindow is in progress” was a way to assume that it was not outdated. If it was uncomplete, the window was on the contrary well and truly active. Not only it suggested to see what was invisible from the street, but it also put in the foreground what every shopwindows do without a displayed written object: to show that their ability to attract customers is the result of a daily face-work that is generally not explicited. Yet without such a face-work, it would be difficult to go window-shopping.