Lessons learned from the exhibition halls of the great museums
By Eric Feigenbaum
Inspiration is everywhere. If you can’t find it, look again; open eyes and a receptive heart are the only requirements. While inspiration is the fulcrum of any artistic endeavor, Salvador Dali once mused, "A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others.” As such, one must wonder when it is that any venture or craft enters into the realm of art? Is it enough to simply inspire?
Artists and designers must look introspectively at their work. Is inspiration the catalyst that propels a work forward, or must inspiration be taken to another level? The art of design must provide a conduit of ideas while being a portal of emotion. Any creative or inspired work will enter the domain of art when it moves the emotions of those who engage with the work.
Analogously, and in the same spirit, the museum curator must also move, nudge, and push emotions. On the surface, the curator’s role is to educate and communicate by overseeing collections and displaying artistic and cultural artifacts. They too, however, must push the boundaries beyond the ordinary. The impactful curator is as an impresario, orchestrating a new world of compelling ideas, concepts, and information. In today’s fast-paced world of mass media, people are searching for new visions, valuable information, and knowledge. People want to be educated, entertained, and excited, whether they’re in a museum or a retail store.
The historic relationship between the main aisles of the great retail emporiums and the grand galleries of the most venerable art museums has been a symbiotic one, if not parallel. Dorothy Shaver, one of the first women appointed to head a major department store, removed the blurred line between the two when she launched a retail phenomenon that remains powerful and relevant today. With insight and vision, she enriched and significantly elevated the course of modern merchandising when she staged a grand exhibition of modern French decorative arts at Lord & Taylor. As president of the venerable Fifth Avenue emporium, her vision was to cultivate a connection between art and retail. Her efforts were an open door, bringing both art and fashion to the general public. In so doing, she created an indelible bond between commerce and culture.
The connective tissue between retail and art is the reflective nature of both; they tell the story of who we are and the way that we live. Andy Warhol told us, "All department stores will become museums, and all museums will become department stores.” The early merchant princes at the turn of the last century recognized the onramp to success was through theatrical presentations that captivated even the casual passersby. They thought of the store as a selling stage. By mid-century, visionary retailers like Shaver brought art into the retail environment to further elevate the customer experience.
While the retail store remains a theatrical venue for new ideas, new concepts, and new fashions, there are lessons to be learned in the halls of culture. At New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Costume Institute’s spring 2024 exhibition, Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion, spans the wide arc of history as it brings extraordinary garments and accessories to life in ways that are sure to strike a responsive chord. In addition to technology, including the use of A.I., video, computer-generated imagery, and molecular science, the exhibition is a study in sensory communication. Inspired by the wonders of the natural world, from flora and fauna, entomology, and the mysteries of the sea, the exhibition speaks on many levels taking visitors on a cultural excursion that includes touch, sight, smell, and sound.
Through a historical investigation of the rhythms of nature, the written word, and the architecture of fashion, the exhibition, designed by Andrew Bolton, Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, transports the most curious to another place and another state of mind. Featuring approximately 220 garments and accessories, the exhibition takes viewers on a sensory journey spanning four centuries of the tactile textures, scented bouquets, and thought-evoking poetics of fashion.
In one immersive presentation, visitors travel to the Western Front during World War I, as John McCrae’s iconic poem Flanders Field is read aloud. McCrae’s work enhances the cultural experience while helping to tell the story of an Ana de Pombo dress that features a print of poppies in a field of wheat. Together, the poetry and the fashion convey the absurdities and horrors of war.
Another presentation evokes the words of Herman Melville who wrote, “Everyone knows meditation and water are wedded forever.” Captured from Melville’s iconic tale, Moby Dick, the line embellishes a sartorial seascape with marine-life-inspired fashion flowing through the gallery. The olfactory senses were delightfully tweaked in yet another presentation, Specter of the Rose. This gallery invites visitors to touch the wall to release the aromas associated with a Paul Poiret dress and a group of gowns from the House of Drecoll.
Whether main aisle or grand gallery, consumer or connoisseur, people in today’s stimulating world of information want to be educated, entertained, and inspired. Store design is an art form, and just as in great works of art, be it from the hand of Michelangelo holding chisel to stone, or the hand of Shakespeare holding quill to parchment, it is a source of inspiration, awakening new vistas that bring compelling ideas to life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ERIC FEIGENBAUM, MEDIA RDI
Eric Feigenbaum is a recognized leader in the visual merchandising and store design industries with both domestic and international design experience. His career includes working in four different sectors of the industry. As a retailer, he served as Corporate Director of Visual Merchandising for Stern’s Department Store, a Division of Federated Department Stores, for fourteen years. In that capacity, he played a key role in the design and development of seven new stores and ten major renovations. He also served as the chair of Federated’s Visual Directors’ Team.
On the design side, he was the Director of Visual Merchandising for WalkerGroup/CNI, an architectural design consultancy located in New York City, specializing in retail design worldwide. In that role, he helped bring visual merchandising to Asia and South America and was involved in the design of stores in South Korea, Japan, Chile, and Peru. He was also a key contributor in the application of WalkerGroup’s proprietary service Envirobranding®, which promotes the physical store environment as an integral component of a company’s projected brand image.
In the educational sector, he was the Chair of the Visual Merchandising Department at LIM College in New York City from 2000 to 2015, where he created the first four-year BBA degree program in visual merchandising, and the first masters degree program in visual merchandising. A pioneer in advocating an eco-friendly approach to visual merchandising and store design, Feigenbaum is responsible for conceiving and designing the state-of-the-art LIM College Green Lab – a sustainable materials lab and research center. Additionally, he was an adjunct professor of Store Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Currently, he is the president and director of creative services for his own retail design company, Embrace Design. With many responsibilities, he also works in the editorial sector as the Editorial Advisor/New York Editor of VMSD Magazine, and the Director of Workshops for WindowsWear.
Feigenbaum has been the recipient of numerous prestigious industry awards. In 2012, he was awarded the industry’s highest honor, the coveted Markopoulos Award. Professor Feigenbaum has lectured all over the world on visual merchandising and store design including presentations at the World Retail Congress and the National Retail Federation as well as presentations in Seoul and Ulsan South Korea; Fukuoka, Japan; Santiago, Chile; Hong Kong; Sydney and Melbourne, Australia; Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba, Brazil; Dusseldorf, Germany; Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, Canada; Monterrey, Guadalajara, and Mexico City, Mexico; Madrid, Spain; Lima, Peru; Bogota and Medellin, Colombia; and Milan and Ancona, Italy.
Feigenbaum is also a founding member of PAVE Global (previously known as, A Partnership for Planning and Visual Education) and is regarded as one of the top experts and visionaries in the Visual Merchandising and store design industries.
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