The shop windows throughout London’s West End are filled with different takes on the holiday season. 

Perhaps to a greater extent than Christmas adverts, at this time of year shop windows are compared at great length. For retailers, it’s make or break – seasonal windows pull shoppers in off the street.

Here we present a selection of some of the more eye-catching displays in central London this year, with more on the highlights below.

If you think that what we show is a little too capital centric, we welcome your help in this collaborative venture. Do send any images to Content@Retail-Week.com or @RetailWeek and we will add them to our gallery.

Fortnum & Mason, Piccadilly

Christmas really wouldn’t be Christmas in London without a pilgrimage being made past the Fortnum displays. While this store is traditional in the subject matter of its windows, it always has a little contemporary humour.

Fortnum’s windows feature everything from a Christmas tree fashioned from papercraft to an organ-playing fox with sheep singing along – to a carol, presumably.

Hunter, Regent Street

Fictional families are always popular, and for Christmas 2018, the Wellington boot brand Hunter has “the Hunters”, a multi-generational group clad in the brand’s wares and posing for a family photograph.

It’s simple and relatively low-cost, and focuses on who will be exchanging presents, rather than on any actual products being given or received.

There’s a white neon sign surrounded by gold tinsel that says “Christmas with the Hunters”, with some of the more traditional festive trappings in the background.

Jigsaw, Regent Street

Jigsaw, Soho

Jigsaw, Soho

There are a significant number of retailers who eschew the Christmas message, opting instead to subvert the genre with windows that say this is “the most wonderful time of the year” but steer clear of robins, holly and suchlike.

Jigsaw stands proud among this group with a window strapline that states “Have A Holly Jolly Lobster”. Spoonerisms notwithstanding, there is something odd about this, along with the accompanying multicoloured lobster in tow.

Fresh, Covent Garden

There is a touch of the Cath Kidston about the window colours deployed by skincare and fragrance retailer Fresh in its Covent Garden store on Mercer Street.

Light turquoise boxes with red ribbons securing their lids set the tone for the whole of the store. An A-stand also advertises that there is an in-store gift-wrapping service, which it is safe to assume may include ribbon-bedecked boxes.

Reserved, Oxford Street

Reserved, Oxford Street

Reserved, Oxford Street

Reserved teaches passersby the Polish for ‘Merry Christmas’

There is relatively little that is festive about the Polish Zara’s window on Oxford Street, but there is a series of spotlighted boxes with each wishing the onlooker ‘Happy Christmas’ in a different language.

Oddly, this works well, largely owing to the juxtaposition of the mannequins’ wigs that feature a bright green swoosh and the dark clothes that they have been dressed in.

This is one of the most straightforward, unshowy Christmas windows in the West End, but it was good enough to stop passers-by.

All this, and the shopper also gets to learn that ‘wesołych świąt’ is ‘Happy Christmas’ in Polish.

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