CHAPTER X.
FIXTURES.
Having erected a proper framework and covered it in an artistic manner, the background is complete, and the decorator next turns to the subject of proper fixtures on which to display his goods.
The writer is a firm believer in good window fixtures, for they assist greatly in making a handsome display, and thus selling goods. Therefore an adequate supply of substantial brass and nickel fixtures is not an extravagance, but a necessity. I said an adequate supply. The big city store needs a great variety of fixtures, for there are many windows to trim. The small store cannot afford more than enough to be used to good advantage.
Side brackets, or arms, must be provided amply, and enough uprights and rods to make whatever racks or trees may be required for small goods. Special display require special fixtures, and where the fixture cannot be entirely covered, a homemade erection would be out of place. When a need arises for a good fixture the expense should not be considered.
From a town of 50,000 inhabitants a merchant writes: “I can no more expect my trimmer to create a good window without proper fixtures than a carpenter to make a good piece of cabinet work without tools. Windows that will attract attention to our goods are necessary; therefore we buy every fixture that is required.” A firm in a town one-half the size of the above, states: “If we were forced to choose between inside fixtures and window fixtures the window fixtures would get them every time. We could sell goods off a dry goods box when once we had brought the people into our store; but without a good window display we fear we could induce very few to enter.”
A general merchant in a town of 5,000 writes: “I never paid any attention to my windows until a year ago, when I instructed one of my clerks who was going to the city, to buy whatever fixtures we might need to trim a window properly. To my horror he purchased nearly $200 worth of fixtures, including a jointed form. I felt like sending the goods back, but, at the clerk’s earnest solicitation, decided to keep them. To-day I would not part with them for double the amount they cost. My windows are talked of all over the country, and my competitors are making frantic efforts to imitate my style of trimming windows.”
Another merchant writes: “I never bought a window fixture that did not prove a good investment.”
HOMEMADE FIXTURES.
The decorator more frequently finds a lack of fixtures to be his stumbling block than any other detail of window trimming. Dearth of proper fixtures is more fruitful of complaint, contention and ill feeling between the trimmer and his employer than all other causes combined; and, while there are many unreasonable and “stingy” employers, on the other hand, it may be observed that in very many cases the more indolent and incompetent the trimmer the louder are his complaints; and to such a degree does he sometimes carry this that his colleagues become wearied of his “hobby,” he becomes persona non grata with his employer, resulting finally in being driven out to make room for one with more tact, better temper and a larger store of latent resources, enabling him to make the best of the, perhaps, meager supply of materials at hand.
Did any one ever know of an incompetent and unsuccessful trimmer who did not lay all his troubles and failures to the lack of fixtures; or a capable and successful one who did not climb to the top in spite of his handicaps of this kind? Again, there are many ambitious young men who do make an effort to surmount these difficulties, regarding this as the “make-shift period,” sighing the while for the time when they can take their place in the great establishment, that “promised land” where their troubles will have ended, where there are fixtures galore for every wrinkle, and where they must but say, “presto, change,” and the marvelous creations they dream about will be complete. It is no secret with experienced men that this state of things exists only in dreams, for, if the great store is replete with all the modern appliances, so, also, are the requirements multitudinous in proportion, and the trimmer who has failed to cultivate to the utmost his inventive faculties while occupying his humbler sphere cannot hope to succeed in the greater one; and, yet again, it has been proven that the average store, doing a business of $100,000 a year, is as fully equipped in the fixture line, in proportion to volume of business done, as is the great metropolitan establishment whose sales run into the millions.