Art of glass: Q&A with The Conran Shop’s Head of Visual Merchandising Betsy Smith

A great shop window can be a work of art – an eye-catching, emotionally impactful tableau that seems to reveal new details each time you walk past. Obviously, the main job of the window is to showcase products, but the best examples transcend mere merchandising – they have you stopping in your tracks and reaching for Instagram.

Connoisseurs of such matters will all agree: The Conran Shop gives a good window. That is thanks in no small part to Betsy Smith, Conran’s head of visual merchandising. Now in her third decade at the Chelsea store (she started as temp one Christmas and never looked back), Betsy is responsible for ensuring the Chelsea shop’s window displays sustain their reputation for beauty, colour and creativity – especially the now-iconic Christmas showcase, which has just been revealed for 2018.

This year’s window is one of the most complex and ambitious in Conran history. Betsy and her team have transformed the space into a cavern of moving light, collaborating with an award-winning West End lighting designer to create a rhythmic, visually enchanting spectacle of light and shade at play. We asked Betsy to share her process and shine some light on how The Conran Shop’s displays come about…

How did you end up in visual merchandising at The Conran Shop?

I joined The Conran Shop 24 years ago as a Christmas temp and never left. I started out in sales but was fascinated by what the display team achieved, so started helping them occasionally. I then applied to be a display junior, (painting and washing up vases) and was lucky enough to work my way up. I’ve always been interested in architecture and spaces and how they can be transformed.

The Conran Shop is constantly changing and evolving so it doesn’t feel like I’ve had the same job. It keeps me very busy and challenged – we are always looking forward to the next new display.

I trained as a fine artist, working in print and sculpture, and had my own studio for a long time. The process involved in physically making something (in a hands-on way) has always been integral to everything I do.

Where do you find your creative inspiration?

I work closely with our Creative Director Stephen Briars who feeds us with ideas and possibilities. It’s then my job to translate them into a design. Usually the inspiration and ideas evolve gradually and naturally. I am constantly drawing on history and previous displays, as well as art exhibitions and spaces I’ve visited. I think and work in a very three-dimensional way so I always try to experience things in the flesh.

How do you go about transforming your initial ideas into a plan of action?

It’s a real team effort – working with the Creative Director and my counterpart Mark Upstone (Global Head of Visual Merchandising who is responsible for Marylebone, Selfridges, Paris and The Conran Shop’s franchises, in Japan), we brainstorm the initial ideas together and then create mood boards. Sometimes the idea comes to us quickly, other times, it can take a little longer. We then try a few different routes, work them up and see where they lead. Sometimes you start with one idea that changes so much it becomes something completely different in the end. We don’t just roll out one idea to all the stores; they are all unique, both architecturally and by customer demographic, so what works in one shop doesn’t necessarily work in another – each needs to be carefully considered.

Once we have defined the idea of what we want to achieve, we then need to break down the elements and work out the best way to make them. My team is very experienced, and we have a lot of great suppliers we have worked with for many years.

Every window is a journey. Some are relatively easy and direct; others can be more challenging and take much longer to realise. Chelsea’s current Christmas window is probably one of the most challenging I’ve ever worked on.

What are the core things you need to consider when designing a new window?

My immediate concern is always to ask ‘How much time do we have to deliver it?’ and to ensure we start the process as far in advance as possible – creating a concept and bringing it to life is a complex and time-consuming process.

We are always trying to create a unique customer experience and journey through the windows as it needs to work from the street outside and be eye-catching, impactful and enticing. While inside the store, customers can walk into our windows so it’s also important to create an environment that they can engage with. Both are equally important for us, so the design always needs to work on these two levels.

We then consider the product we wish to highlight in the window and how they will articulate the space. The themes can be very different; sometimes the windows may be reminiscent of an interior or exterior space in which our product collection sits. At other times – as with our recent Pinterest maze – it can be more abstract and conceptual.

How challenging is it to find a design that is suitable for Christmas but doesn’t look out of place in October when it is installed?

We start working on Christmas in the spring so it’s something that has been on our minds for many months. We approach the window in a few phases; initially, it can be quite pared back and about us showcasing our amazing new collections and then as we move towards Christmas we ramp it up and make it feel more ‘giftable’ by adding those finishing touches including wrapped presents and trimmings.

Tell us a little bit about your making process. We hear you’re a dab hand with scale models.

The easiest and most direct way for me to realise a design is to make a scale model of the window. The physical and tactile process of making models aids my creative decision making. One of the hardest parts of my job is decision making and committing to an idea – without models, I can be indecisive. I keep them on a row of shelves in my office.

For the Christmas window model, I spend days preparing all the components to scale. What’s really lovely about a scale model is that you can view it easily from every angle, which makes the process of working out the whole design much more efficient.

This year I have been making a real effort to learn 3D software to generate visualisations of the windows. These are used for the technical details/measurements in the fabrication rather than the realisation of the idea.