WORK EXPERIENCE: Wildings Department Store

FOR the window display team at Wildings department store in Newport, this week is their busiest of the entireyear.

The duo behind the windows at the 140-year-old store have spent five months of planning, designing and gathering props in preparation for the November scramble to put the displays together.

But with the department store having been crowned the winner of the city’s best window display for more than 10 years in a row, the pressure to perform means the team cannot afford to skimp on the preparation.

I spent the morning behind the scenes with staff at Wildings, in Commercial Street, to find out about the process of planning and putting together an award-winning window display.

Surprisingly, the actual team in charge of window displays throughout the year is surprisinglysmall with just two members; head window designer Jane Sutcliffe and her colleague, Tina Roberts.

The pair are mid-way through a six-day week when I meet them both, armed with a trolley of stock and a tangled bundle of Christmas lights.

Mrs Sutcliffe said: “We are always planning. In July and August we start planning for the Christmas windows. First of all we sit down and plan on which departments’ stock is going where in the display.

“We then come up with a theme, it’s trying to get a scheme going which is the first step really. We run it by the managing director, and as long as there’s lots of stock and prices in the display he’s happy.”

Mrs Sutcliffe, who has worked at Wildings for 14 years, originally worked in the retail department and began dabbling in doing the window displays when a colleague was off sick.

“I loved it,” she said. “It’s a fabulous job, and I love it.”

Sally Ford, store manager at Wildings, said the Christmas themes are either traditional or something a bitoften a little more unique.

“Every year we come up with a Christmas theme. Sometimes we do traditional themes all in white and red, and sometimes we go blingy.

“Our windows are very full on, we are an emporium. We don’t go for the minimalist look really. We come up with sketch drawings, which the managing director then looks at.”

But style is not everything, and Mrs Ford reminds me that the purpose of the windows is to showcase the department store’s products so that the customer’s buy them.

“It is a display but it’s not all left up to Jane’s creativity. The main focus is to display stock to sell.”

I’m told this year’s theme is a mixture of woodland and Winter Wonderland, with bare trees and a snowflake dusting on the display cabinets.

The budget for the Wildings Christmas window displays is just £500, which I’m told is just a fraction of what the big stores in London such as Harrods and Selfridges spend.

“At the London stores they can do scenes because they have so many windows and a big budget. If you look in the professional display catalogues they cost thousands and thousands,” Mrs Sutcliffe said.

“We only have two windows so we have to make sure we display stock.”

With their budget, both Mrs Sutcliffe and Mrs Roberts are savvy in planning their props.

Mrs Roberts said: “We’ve put wreaths together in the stockroom ourselves, and do all the lugging and graft work ourselves too.

“It is quite hard work, both physically as well because you’re lugging things around. Apparently it used to be a man’s job originally because of all the hard graft.”

This year’s display also features several treelogs, which were sourced through a friend of Mrs Roberts who works in the forestry commission.

For the Christmas decorations around the store, manager Mrs Ford said all the store’s Christmas decorations were bought an astounding 11 months in advance.

“We go to buying shows for the decorations. We buy them in January for January the following year, and then the planning and buying for Christmas goes on throughout the rest of the year.”

Last year the department store, which dates from the 1870s, once again scooped the award for the best retail shop in the Newport window display competition run by both the Chamber of Commerce and the Argus.

Mrs Sutcliffe said: “The managers always say to me, ‘You’re going to win again for us this year.’ But we say, ‘Oh no, it’s not that simple!’”

“It’s always important to do a new scheme every year. I can’t really pick a favourite. Usually the one you’re working on becomes your favourite. And the following year you end up saying the same again.”

The pair tells me this week has been manic, and seeing the amount of stock and props which need to be put up, it is clear the task is a big one.

Mrs Sutcliffe said: “The windows usually take four days to do. We start by stripping everything out, cleaning and then doing the painting and the preparation.

“Then we can start arranging stock on the shelves, one department at a time.

“We put out stock which the departments are trying to promote, or think will make good gifts.

“Often we work with a triangle form in the window, as that is meant to work well with the eye. It goes in threes and fives apparently.”

Even after the display is done, Mrs Sutcliffe said she keeps making small adjustments and corrections.

It is clear the team take great pride in the displays, and justifiably so, as the customers clearly appreciate a nicely presented window.

Even while Mrs Sutcliffe was explaining the window design to me, a passerby came up to us to compliment the display as it was being put together, showing the Wildings windows have become a Newport tradition in their own right.