One thing I've really missed about working at J. Crew, besides always fucking around with Jasen (the gay one, not the fiancee one), was really expanding my talents as a visual merchandiser. Not to toot my own horn or anything, because I'm really not that creative or artistic. I am, however, meticulous. You show me a picture of how you want things done, and I'll be damn sure to do whatever it takes to make it look exactly like that picture.
I've worked ridiculous hours at J. Crew to make that store look amazing (try 28 hours... STRAIGHT), and poured my blood, sweat, and tears into that store. It was always very physically demanding - sometimes it required me to be on my tip-toes on the very top step of a 16 foot ladder, staple-gunning a freaking parachute to the ceiling, or working overnight to hand-paint goddamn raindrops on the glass windows with no AC. No matter the challenge, or the conditions, Jasen and I always managed to pull through, and in the wise words of Tim Gunn,"Make it work."
I remember every time I would be doing the windows, it's 4 in the morning and I had clocked in 12 hours prior, I always thought, "Fuck, this is SO not worth $10.00 an hour." But then the next day, we would get numerous people who stop in front of the store just to check out the visual display, and even have people come in just to say how wonderful they look. That's when I reminded myself, "Oh, so *THIS* is why I love my job." It was incredibly rewarding.
Sometimes I wish I could go back and just do visuals full time. As much as I enjoy working at Juicy, it's just not quite the same. While Juicy looks pretty incredible on the inside, with the graffiti splattered across the walls, and the artwork that is so thoughtfully defaced, none of that ever changes. We had artists come in during store opening to do all that. The only thing that changes visually are the placement of the clothes (not even the fixtures), and what goes on the mannequins. Every now and then, Juicy will come out with something fairly creative, like the giant red bows 2 Christmases ago, or the huge gold chains wrapped around the forms, but it doesn't get my creative juices flowing quite like J. Crew did.
Today, I went into the store at 7am to install our "Back-to-School" windows. In the two years I've been with Juicy, I think this was the most elaborate one I've seen. I had to write on a chalkboard, Bart Simpson style, "I'M TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL" over and over again, and I had to scatter chalk all over the ground. It took about 5 hours to finish, which is far less than the average 12 hours I used to spend, but it definitely felt like the old days.
[Pictures from J.Crew]
April 2007
Things to notice:
1. Those umbrella are hanging from the ceiling using fishing line, and barely pinned to the forms.
2. Those dresses are "flowing in the wind", also using fishing line.
3. The corbels on the wall were hung up by ourselves.
4. The rain drops were painted on using stencils. Which was a total pain-in-the-ass because the stencil didn't fit that window perfectly. So we had to paint, let it dry, paint a 2nd coat, line up the rain drops perfectly again. Rinse. Repeat. This process took us ALL NIGHT.
5. Look how cute the rain drops are bouncing off the umbrellas.
December 2006
Things to notice:
1. Those pajama pants are clipped on to Christmas lights, that are hanging from the ceiling.
2. Um... those bust forms don't come with arms. We made the arms, and hands ourselves.
3. Notice how cute those three are playing tug-o-war with Henry, the dog.
4. That snow on the ground was a bitch to clean up.
5. The snow on the windows were hand painted on by yours truly.
6. The snowflakes on the wall were made using yarn and a lot of thumbtacks.
Now see the difference between those and the Juicy ones? (These pics are kind of crap since they were taken with my iPhone.)
August 2009
Cute, but not the same, right?
I think my calling is to do visuals full-time again, as selling is not exactly my strong suit. Maybe one day...
