Christmas trends for 2010
Published: 25 February, 2010
The recession has caused endless difficulties for the shopping centre industry, from rising vacancy rates to dwindling footfall. But if there is a glimmer of silver lining, it’s that centres are upping their game. The assumption that shoppers will continuously flood through the doors is fading fast, and managers need to stay more appealing than the competition. Christmas decorations are an ideal draw, so keeping up with current trends is vital.
Christmas is without a doubt a scheme unto itself. It transforms the look and feel of a shopping centre, building on existing styles and working with the architecture to give an immediate impact. As Klaus Mark, CEO of lighting manufacturer MK Illumination, puts it: “You need that wow-effect as people come into the centre.”
To achieve this effect, managers need to find the right balance of lighting inside the centre. Too little and centres undersell themselves; too much and the impact is heavy and confusing. MK Illumination, with its head office in Austria and sales subsidiaries in 17 different countries, has had to adapt to the different cultures and traditions surrounding Christmas time.
But despite certain variations, the desired effect of shopping centre decorations is always to delight without being overly distracting. “Christmas lighting is so important to attract people to the centre. Everything needs to be considered to make the product more attractive, from the colours of the lights to whether they should flash or blink,” says Mark.
In order to increase footfall, the managing director of MK Illumination UK, Paul Dove is pushing for centres to use external lighting as well as internal. The UK is behind other European countries in terms of outdoor Christmas decoration, and while this might have something to do with British weather, Dove thinks UK centres are missing a trick. “Centres take it for granted that people are going to shop with them, but that isn’t the case anymore. People need more encouragement.”
As MK products are used in a range of countries with very different climates, the lighting is suitable to withstand harsh British winters. But UK centres are keen to stick with what they know, particularly when they don’t have much budget to play around with. Dove has high hopes this will start to change as an increasing number of schemes include public spaces. Sanderson Aracade in Morpeth is a partly outdoor scheme, allowing MK to design a 24-ft stag for its central courtyard. “A lot of centres are choosing to have outdoor spaces, which they will need to decorate come Christmas time,” says Dove.
If centres are not entirely comfortable with taking Christmas decorations outdoors, the opposite is true for indoor schemes. Anita Stampfl, who works specifically with shopping centres across MK’s subsidiaries, notes that despite a recession and massive cuts in budget, managers are still putting money aside to kit centres out in the latest Christmas decorations and lighting. “The general consensus all across Europe is that Christmas is still very important, so shopping centres hold on to it even during times of recession,” she says.
Clinging to tradition through dark months of economic downturn is also reflected in the style of decoration. This year’s Christmasworld show, held in Frankfurt at the start of the month, demonstrated a trend towards a more traditional Christmas as opposed to the minimalistic and modern take of recent years.
With this in mind, MK has designed installations incorporating colours and shapes that are immediately associated with Christmas. The reindeer designed for Sanderson Arcade was a popular focal point of MK’s stand at Christmasworld, while traditional stars, bells and Christmas trees dominate the company’s catalogue.
Operations manager for MK UK, Russell Brown, believes the contemporary design of previous years became too detached from the spirit of Christmas. “Lighting went too far – it didn’t replicate Christmas for shoppers,” he says. “We have gone for a more contemporary design but we’ve also retained tradition. People can immediately tell that our reindeer or trees are meant for Christmas, but we use aluminium frameworks, crystal and baubles to inject a modern element.”
This explains MK Illumination’s theme for 2010: ‘Tradition in Modern Times’. In keeping with this trend, MK has chosen warm white light to use throughout its designs for the coming year. “It’s the colour for 2010,” says Dove. “When LED was first introduced, there was a transitional period where blue and then white light was the colour to have. Now the fashion is heading towards a more traditional warm light.”
Because MK not only installs but also manufactures its products, everything from colour to design can be adapted to suit current trends. The original reindeer design, which used white light at the Morpeth scheme, is now made up of 5,000 warm white LEDs.
The warmer glow effect also went down well for MK’s Irish subsidiary after the busy shopping street, Opera Lane in Cork City, opted for the new colour last Christmas. Jon Riordan, managing director of MK Ireland, explains: “There’s a preference for a warm, glowing feeling in shopping centres. Flashing white lights are fine externally, but inside the lights should be comfortable and slows people down while they look around the shops.
“Ireland has had such a rough run, what with the banks, the economy and the housing crisis. Now, people here just want to slow down a bit.”
Across Ireland and the UK, recession hit hard. But according to Stampfl, this has only made people hanker after the warmth and comfort of a traditional Christmas that bit more. “When times are tougher, you always go back to what you know. That’s not just with illumination, but with everything.”
vibrant colours
According to Caroline Gamester, managing director of leading decorations company LDJ Design and Display, the recession has prompted a noticeable shift in attitude. “The same thing happened with the Depression of the 1930s and 40s. People just want to feel fabulous,” she says.
Having worked in the fashion industry as a designer for Donna Karan, Gamester has a keen eye for colour and style. Using shop fronts and catwalks as inspiration, LDJ’s design team is working on a more colourful and vibrant approach going into 2010.
“Things that make people happy have become very important: bright colours, fun shapes. It’s almost a child’s eye view of Christmas,” explains design director Phil Mercer. “Rich materials and metallics, like gold and copper, are other key features.”
The concept of a ‘traditional Christmas’, however, is not a simple one. As Gamester points out: “What is traditional these days? Blue is now becoming a tradition, whereas five years ago you wouldn’t have seen it.” So when designing schemes, LDJ stays away from fixed ideas of what Christmas should or shouldn’t be. Instead, the team uses design concepts from several sources – including films, music and New York fashion trends – as a basis for new ideas.
“It’s more of a barometer. We were predicting trends for 2010 as we were installing 2009 schemes, so the most important thing is flexibility. We have to give centres what they want. Some centres, for example, are very child friendly, so they wouldn’t want the most sophisticated scheme going,” notes Gamester.
“We designed and installed decoration at Victoria Square in Leeds, which is a beautiful building with top end brands like Louis Vuitton. In that case, the architecture became very important. You always have to work with the scheme.”
And the style trends themselves can be flexible. “There’s a strong trend for art deco, which can be taken in many different directions. You can dress it up and make it extravagant, or leave it simple with just the shapes to suggest the style.”
Flexibility is not only important in adapting to the style of a shopping centre, but also to its budget. Managers don’t have a vast amount to put into Christmas schemes, particularly at the moment. But rather than being selective, LDJ has clients ranging from St David’s, Cardiff and The Mall at Cribbs Causeway right through to The Beacon Centre in North Shields.
Gamester sees it as something of a challenge. “It’s about coming up with innovative ways of working around smaller budgets. That’s where being a good designer comes into play. In fashion terms, designing high end tops when you have the best fabrics and patterns to work with is far easier than designing good value men’s shirts for Marks & Spencer.”
Clearly staying flexible to your clients’ needs has to go hand in hand with quality product and innovative design. For every supplier and installer of commercial decorations, health & safety is a top priority. “As well as making sure that each product is safely fixed, it costs our client a lot of money and effort if we have to come back in and repair things once they’ve been put up,” says Gamester.
“Over Christmas, we do 150 schemes in five weeks, so we need to get everything right first time. Basically, if it’s up there, it needs to stay up there.”
one step ahead
The design of each scheme is equally as important. Christmas is a great opportunity for shopping centres to attract people from further afield by installing creative displays that aren’t replicated in dozens of centres. As Andrew Lee, LDJ’s deputy manager, puts it: “Everyone is getting more advanced, kids especially. So we’ve always got to be thinking: what is the next big thing?”
Heavy investment in graduate training has helped the company stay ahead of the game. LDJ sponsors a course at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, working with the college on a number of projects to help students design and research the next generation of commercial Christmas experiences.
In turn, a fresh approach and different perspective helps the LDJ team stay innovative. Mercer enjoys hearing the students’ ideas, even if the logistics sometimes need tweaking. “It’s great to see something through fresh eyes.” he says.
“We have to give advice on how to make schemes commercially viable, because the students have never worked according to the strict criteria of shopping centre schemes. But their lack of inhibition also lets them be more creative, so we get see really some interesting ideas.”
First Christmas by Rosenau – a major manufacturer and supplier of decorations to shopping centres across Europe – is continuing the trend towards a vibrant and fun Christmas 2010. Summing it up as a ‘sparkling Christmas of light and movement’, business development manager Sharon Peterson says: “It’s a trend which is being carried through from the last two years and expanded upon, particularly in terms of increased use of sparkling and glitter effects, as well as waterfalls and sweeping curtain movements.”
But like MK Illumination, Peterson stresses the importance of tradition and familiarity. “First Christmas will not be found designing decorations in different fashionable colours, as perhaps our competitors will. Rather we believe that Christmas must be recognisable as Christmas and not look like an experiment of modern art. The use of traditional Christmas icons, such as trees and garlands are still very much in trend, albeit interpreted in modern designs,” she says.
It’s the innovation of the displays and their suitability to the centre that First Christmas prizes above anything else. Peterson agrees that decorations should underline special features, such as the architectural supports at Westfield London which were transformed into sparkling Christmas branches.
Similarly, First Christmas had to tailor decoration for the Brunswick Centre in West London – an outdoor scheme with no atriums or interior architecture from which lights or ornaments could be hung.
tailor-made
“The Brunswick is a small, but elegant outdoor shopping centre in London, representing quite a challenge as to where and how Christmas decorations can be installed. Up until 2008, the Centre had featured very little decoration other than coloured lighting under the outdoor seating,” Peterson says.
Using the brief given by centre manager David Plumb, First Christmas utilised every available feature – from trees and banners to awnings on the shop fronts – and adapted made-to-measure fixtures to transform the centre.
“Whatever the decoration, it must be the talk of the town, drawing customers to the centre for a special Christmas shopping experience at the time of year when they are most ready to spend,” Peterson adds.
“Putting all these elements together means that, where possible, decorations should be designed tailor-made for a centre. Indeed it might be cheaper to offer and install the latest warehouse leftovers, but will these really attract the customers?”
It’s the potential to transform a centre into a real attraction that inspires Adrian Ford, project director of Springfield Decorations and Display. Springfield designed and installed Cheshire Oaks’ 27.5-metre Christmas tree – famously the biggest in the world. And it’s this unique selling point that Ford is after: something that makes one centre stand out from the rest.
“Using Christmas decorations as part of a marketing strategy is not something most shopping centres do. Cheshire Oaks pushed the boundaries beyond what people consider decorations to be, and what they can be used for. The tree at Cheshire Oaks pulls in huge crowds even two years on,” Ford observes.
Rather than organising a Christmas lights switch-on and leaving it at that, centres should be creating a continual draw. Springfield designs decorations for the frontage and atrium of each John Lewis department store, and according to Ford, the effect is immediate: “The day we put the Christmas decorations up, sales increase.”
So Christmas displays are essentially marketing tools, as long as they are cleverly thought out and pack a punch. Ford suggests that a centre’s own colours can be used as a basis for the Christmas scheme, as a kind of branding exercise. And focal pieces should be used wherever possible.
“A tree is usually the centre piece in shopping centres, and it should be put in the middle of the centre to encourage people to walk through. If there isn’t room for a Christmas tree, then centres should have flowing decorations that carry all the way through the centre. You don’t want the experience to stop half way through.”
Keeping things fresh is also crucial. As shoppers walk into a new area of a centre, they should be greeted by a new spectacle. Specific themes and colours stay the same, but new design ideas will keep up the necessary impact.
“It’s almost a psychological approach to Christmas,” says Ford. “As people round the corner, they’ll see new ideas and that ‘wow-factor’ will continue throughout the entire centre. Footfall will inevitably increase if a centre looks and feels better than any other shopping mall.”
This sense of individuality and uniqueness was the basis of Springfield’s own rule never to repeat the same decorations in neighbouring centres. When designing schemes, however, Ford doesn’t follow a general guide but tailors everything to the style of the building. The Exchange Arcade in Nottingham suits traditional decorations, with green Christmas trees and garlands: “Contemporary would have felt completely wrong.”
At the other end of the scale, airports are modern buildings and Christmas displays need to fit in with these surroundings. “The decorations need to enhance the building. People need to walk in and notice it. You don’t want people asking, ‘Is that a Christmas decoration or part of the building?'"
