Behind New York City's Holiday Windows

The hair-raising Lady Gaga window at Barneys New York

	Each window at Saks Fifth Avenue features a one-of-a-kind dress
	The menagerie inside Bergdorf Goodman’s Textiles window

For one of New York’s grandest holiday traditions, the city’s major department stores invite all who stroll past their windows to glimpse into spectacular winter wonderlands, each more magical than the next. This year they are also spreading goodwill by raising awareness and funds for worthy causes

Running through January 2, Barneys New York’s Madison Avenue flagship will be transformed into Gaga’s Workshop, a multifaceted extravaganza overseen by Lady Gaga and her talented team, including visionaries Nicola Formichetti (Thierry Mugler creative director and regular Gaga collaborator), Barneys’ creative director Dennis Freedman, and artists Eli Sudbrack and Christophe Hamaide Pierson. A riff on Santa’s workshop, the project goes beyond the windows—which will be filled with a series of vignettes inspired by music, fashion, astrology, and the Fame Monster herself—to also take over the entire fifth floor of the Madison Avenue Men’s store, including eight stations devoted to gift ideas and exclusive, limited-edition products. As with all things Gaga, there are plenty of campy, outrageous moments, like the jewelry store created out of an oversize Lady Gaga-turned-spider, and a boudoir fashioned to resemble a giant wig.

Those craving more Gaga can make their way to the 60th Street entrance, which has morphed into an oversize façade resembling the mouth of a monsterlike Lady Gaga. But this monster has a heart of gold. Twenty-five percent of proceeds from all items featured in the workshop (and on gagasworkshop.com) will be donated to the Born This Way Foundation, founded by the superstar and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, which aims to empower young people and address issues like self-confidence, antibullying, and career development.

Bergdorf Goodman's Animals on Parade
Turn off Madison and onto Fifth Avenue for a trip to Bergdorf Goodman, where a breathtaking nature-inspired bacchanal is unfolding, animated by the theme “Carnival of the Animals.” Like all of the retailer’s elaborate holiday windows, these have been all year in the making. David Hoey, Bergdorf’s senior director of visual presentation, from whose fertile imagination the windows spring, promises this season’s mind-blowing displays will contain something for everyone. “One of the things we’re proud of is entertaining so many different audiences simultaneously,” he says.

Five whimsical, incredibly detailed scenes, based around five materials, will fill the Fifth Avenue windows. The Wood window displays a huge collection of wooden antique animals surrounding a sculptor. The Paper window is a mise-en-scène of black and white animals intricately fashioned from paper, like a 19th-century zoological encyclopedia come to life. The Mosaic window is an undersea fantasy whose set and props are encrusted in Italian ceramic tile, beads, and crystals in every shade of blue. The Textiles window conjures an Arctic garden party (cheekily subtitled Breaking the Ice), complete with life-size plush Arctic animals and a mannequin dressed in head-to-toe J. Mendel, while The Brass Menagerie is filled with handcrafted metal animals, many of them exotic birds like parrots and toucans, created by Mexican artist Sergio Bustamante in the 1970s, and a character dressed in a specially commissioned Naeem Khan gown.

Saks Fifth Avenue's Snow
Passersby are bound to be dazzled before they enter Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship store, whose façade is aglow with a hypnotic, state-of-the-art projection incorporating thousands of bubbles interacting with the traditional Saks snowflake. The windows themselves—the largest display in the store’s recent history—are inspired by the book Who Makes the Snow?, in which a little girl tries to find the source of the snowflakes outside. Each scene includes a fantastical, one-of-a-kind dress from a top-tier fashion house such as Alexander McQueen, Nina Ricci, Olivier Theyskens, and Marchesa. The haute-iness isn’t limited to fashion: One window also contains a full-size car, 500C by Gucci, customized by the brand’s creative director, Frida Giannini. We know what we want for Christmas.