Visual merchandising has evolved to the point where the modern shopper has grown used to the effort and the artistry that goes into it. But it hasn’t always been like that.

We take a look back at some of the innovations and milestones in retail history that have shaped the art of storefront design into what it is today.

19th century seasonal displays set the precedent for storefront design as improvements in plate glass manufacturing makes larger windows more affordable.

Due to the increased availability of plate glass in the late 1800s, shop owners of the day began fitting the front of their stores with large windows in which they could display their merchandise to the general public.

R.H. Macy, founder the department store chain Macy’s, is credited with being one of the first people to create a large scale Christmas window display in 1874. Only a few decades later, most retail giants in major American cities were competing with each other to have the best holiday window displays.

Selfridges brings window display to the UK in the early 1900’s, then uses its storefront windows to broadcast war news.

Harry Gordon Selfridge founded Selfridges & Co in 1909. This revolutionary department store had a huge effect on visual merchandising in the UK, as it was one of the first retail outlets in the country to use fashionable window design to attract customers.

Before this, shopkeepers would often stand in their doorways and attempt to convince people to come inside in person. This in-person marketing was not popular with everyone, apparently earning shopkeepers a reputation for “greed, pettiness and narrow-mindedness”.

Later, during the Balkan Wars from 1912-13, the flagship Selfridges store in Oxford Street began posting news about the war in their shop window. When the First World War broke out in 1914, the branch brought back its ‘War Window’, which became an attraction in and of itself as it drew people from all over London to Selfridges just to read its contents.

Electricity makes mechanised display possible.

Early in the 20th century, mechanisation became another way in which retailers could draw attention to their storefronts. It also became a catalyst for the move away from windows only displaying a store’s products in its windows.

While some shops would on occasion display some “not for sale” items in their windows, it was in 1938 that New York based luxury department store Lord & Taylor first pioneered mechanical storefront designs.

Their Christmas display included absolutely no Lord & Taylor products; instead it featured mechanical bells that swung to a recording which made it sound as if they were actually ringing.

Also around this time, electricity became more easily accessible. The lights installed in storefront windows now meant that window displays could continue to attract attention long into the night. Thus technology provided a means by which retailers could push the boundaries of visual merchandising and storefront design.

The lines between merchandising and art are blurred as artists are invited to design storefronts.

By the late 30s, high profile artists were being commissioned to design storefront window displays for major stores. This was a pivotal time for retail as it helped establish storefront design and visual merchandising as a true art form in the retail industry.

Salvador Dali designed a now infamous Bonwit Teller display in 1939. When the window was changed, the surrealist painter was allegedly furious. In his anger, he pushed the tub so hard that both he and it fell through the window and onto the street.

Towards the start of his career in 1961, Andy Warhol had slightly more success with his foray into storefront design. Warhol hung five of his paintings in the background of another Bonwit Teller display which centred around mannequins wearing spring dresses. Fortunately, neither he nor his paintings ever wound up through a shop window.

Other famous artists who have worked in storefront design and visual merchandising include Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Maurice Sendak.

Increasingly artistic and mechanised displays paved the way for storefront design that would not only focus on merchandise but appeal to customers’ interests and aspirations.

This move from simple shopfront to an exercise in branding would only accelerate into the second part of the 20th century and has been taken to even further heights with the introduction of virtual and augmented reality in the 21st. Read more about this in our second instalment on the evolution of storefront design.