Downtown Bloomington, IL - Penelope's
Penelope's in downtown Bloomington, IL describes itself as a "fine women's resale", and are they right! I love this store because it's resale, so it's cheaper and thrifty, but when you walk into the store it's so upscale and polished looking and feeling!
I think Penelope's window showcases a great variety in their dress styles, and the garments are clearly the focus in each section of the complete window. The backdrop used is not a full covering background, but rather banners that hang behind each garment. Even though you can see the store behind the background, I don't think it is distracting, because the backdrop pattern is so unique and eye-catching. I have no idea what the pattern is- to be honest it looks like brightly colored cells, but that's part of it's charm and attention getting appeal! While the window wraps a bit around the building, the layout of the display is very symmetrical. Each dress form is placed within a section of the full window right in the middle with the backdrop directly behind the forms. Something that isn't the best about this window is that the visual weight feels a little off, because of the forms used. On one side there are mannequins used- one with a head and the other without, and then the other side is just a basic dress form with no legs. To me, this makes the window feel more heavy on the mannequin side, which would be fine if the plain dress form side didn't feel more empty. I think the mannequins make the window look more full and complete, while the dress forms are too small for the window (which also plays into proportion!). However, the eye travels smoothly between each section of the window, because at first glance you see the bright background, then you go from one garment to the next. My favorite element of this window is the unique banner backdrops!
xoxo~ Ashley
