Holiday 2010 NY Department Store Windows

Barney's NY: Barneys' flagship at 61st Street and Madison Avenue has cooked up a new combination. "We decided it was time food and fashion came together," Barneys creative director Simon Doonan tells StyleList. "Our customers are immersed in the foodie culture and not into Kim Kardashian or Lindsay Lohan. These are the new rock stars and they're accomplished, talented people." Immersing himself in the new culture, Doonan embraced the foodies. "I felt like Margaret Mead learning about things like the Food Network and the Illy Café." And his new materials soon got the Doonan treatment. "The Illy window has 25,000 Illy packages collected from vendors in the last year to make this incredible ball gown. And there are 1,000 recycled Illy cans in the window too."

Holiday 2010 NY Department Store Windows

Henri Bendel: Specialty retailer Henri Bendel, at 56th Street and Fifth Avenue, decorates the windows and also its four-story atrium. Working the chosen "Nutcracker" theme, the atrium sparkles with twinkling ballerinas and sparkling Swarovski chandeliers. "It's a very New York story," Gilberto Santana, Bendel's visual director, tells StyleList. "Seeing 'The Nutcracker' during the holidays is a tradition, like visiting our store is. It was the perfect marriage." Santana's team tempered for the front window, however, one of the scarier aspects of the holiday ballet: the Rat King. "We decided to show it as a mask, so you see the human factor. A lot of kids look at our windows, so we want them to be friendly."

Holiday 2010 NY Department Store Windows

Bergdorf Goodman: Choosing a sentimental theme, "Wish You Were Here," the posh shop at 57th Street and Fifth Avenue sparkles with a less sentimental vision. "We have some less conventional interpretations," admits David Hoey, senior director of visual merchandising. "Like the trip-to-the-moon window, 'Day Tripping.' Our window is what a 19th-century fantasy of a trip to the moon would be. It is inspired by a 1902 movie, 'Voyage Dans la Lune," which was the first science-fiction movie," he tells StyleList. "It's so glam-y and glittery. We had 2 tons of quartz trucked here to make our lunar landscape. It's a little bit Barbarella and a little bit Salvatore Dalí."

Holiday 2010 NY Department Store Windows

Bloomingdale's: The 59th and Lex shopping mecca hits close to our hearts with its holiday theme. "Happy, merry, peace and love are the words of the season that we hold dear," explains Jack Hruska, executive vice president of creative services. "We knew we wanted to create a series of different trees made of multiple-sized video screens, so the trees would decorate themselves," he told StyleList. This winter wonderland was created with almost 100 television screens ranging in size from 55 to 32 inches, on which appear animated scenes. "You see deer, or Santa's shadow as he flies overhead and magical stardust falls from the sleigh," Hruska adds. "The hardest part was making the animation come out." And he notes, "These are not commercial windows -- we wanted to give back to the city and we're happy with the way it came out."

Holiday 2010 NY Department Store Windows

Lord & Taylor: This Fifth Avenue landmark chose "Share the Joy" as its seasonal theme, and shared the process with 12 lucky customers, chosen from hundreds who submitted holiday memories and stories. "The response was overwhelming," Scott Devine, vice president of visual merchandising, tells StyleList. "We received humorous, nostalgic and heartwarming stories of family gatherings, childhood memories and traditions passed from generation to generation." Each of the 12 chosen anecdotes inspired a window vignette that features the person's name and story. These scenes weigh up to 2,000 pounds and were created on a lower level and then lifted on hydraulics to street level, where over 120,000 people pass daily.

Holiday 2010 NY Department Store Windows

Saks Fifth Avenue: Directly opposite Rockefeller Center's Christmas tree, this iconic store's windows offer front-row seats to the holiday. This year's concept, "The Snowflake and the Bubble," consists mainly of a light show projected onto the store. "I wanted to do something different this year and I thought bubbles," Terron Schaefer, executive vice president and chief creative officer, tells StyleList. "Bubbles go up and they're symbols of festivity -- Champagne, the New Year, a new you. I wanted to map out snowflakes coming down and bubbles going up and what happens when they pass. There's a very loose story and a charming scene where the bubbles and the snowflakes intertwine and dance."

Holiday 2010 NY Department Store Windows

Macy's: Taking a traditional theme, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," the mega-retailer abounds with high-tech touches. "Each of our windows is a little theater," Macy's director of windows Paul Olszewski tells StyleList. "All of them have a curtain with a reveal. There's lighting, voice-overs and animation that tell the scene, and when the curtain closes up, it's time to move to the next chapter." The production combines high-tech with handcrafting. The scenery is made entirely of paper. "We used 17,000 pieces of paper in 100 different colors," Olszewski says, "that were hand- and laser-cut. The artistry shows a new way of storytelling."

Holiday 2010 NY Department Store Windows