Visual Merchandising

Guides

Visual Merchandising Guides

A working library for people who build windows: how far apart mannequins should stand, which pose reads from the pavement, how a season is planned backwards from the day it opens. Written from the workshop floor, not from a trend report.

Start with window display See the collection

Custom ordersFrom your drawing3D printed before tooling, then moulded
Basics that matter4 principlesSight line, triangle, negative space, repeat
Minimum order5 piecesPer style, standard poses
Standard lead time2–4 weeksProduction only. Sea freight adds 5–6 weeks

Start here

The four basics that fix most windows

Before poses, props or colour schemes, four rules decide whether a window works at all. They are old, they are not fashionable, and they account for most of the difference between a window that stops people and one they walk past.

Table 1 — The four principles, and how each one usually fails
Principle	What it means in practice	Where it applies	Typical failure
Sight line	Place the focal mannequin at 1,400–1,600 mm from the window base, roughly eye height for an adult walking past.	Every window, every season	Everything set at the same height, so nothing leads
Triangle	Three elements at three heights read as a composition; four or more read as a queue.	Groups of 2–5 mannequins	Mannequins in a straight line, all standing, all facing forward
Negative space	Leave at least 30% of the glass empty. Empty space is what makes the product look expensive.	Small windows, 2–3 m wide	Filling the window because the shop has stock to move
Repeat	One colour, one material or one gesture, repeated three times. Repetition reads at 5 m; detail does not.	Street-facing windows, any size	Three mannequins, three different styling stories

Test it from the street. Stand 5 m back and take a photograph on a phone, then look at the thumbnail. If you cannot tell what the window is about in the thumbnail, the composition is not working — and no amount of prop styling will rescue it.

Window planning

Start with the window, not the mannequin

A sealed window with a 900 mm deep floor and a low ceiling can hold three mannequins. An open-front window on a busy pavement can hold two, because people walk through the frame and the sight line keeps breaking. The number of mannequins follows the architecture, not the other way round.

The two things worth measuring before you order anything are the glass width and the distance from the glass to the back wall. Those two numbers give you the usable floor area, and the usable floor area gives you the count.

Our full method — sealed, open and semi-open windows, the spacing formula, and a twelve-month planning calendar — sits on the window display planning guide.

Three spaced mannequins in a shop window seen from the pavement — A window works when the silhouette reads before the clothing does. Clear gaps between figures do more than styling does.

Grouping

Mannequin grouping: pair, trio, cluster

Grouping is the cheapest upgrade available to a shop. The same three mannequins can look like a considered display or like a stock room, depending only on spacing and height.

Table 2 — Grouping patterns and when to use them
Pattern	Layout	Best for	Spacing
Pair, staggered	One figure 300–400 mm forward, shoulders turned 15–20° toward each other	Narrow windows under 1.8 m	0.45 × height
Trio, triangle	Centre figure back and raised on a 200 mm plinth, two flanking forward	Standard high-street window	0.6 × height
Cluster of five	Two trios overlapping, one figure walking out of the group	Flagship and corner windows over 4 m	0.5–0.7 × height
Single with prop	One figure, one object at a different height, nothing else	Luxury, minimal, one-product stories	n/a

Height matters as much as distance. A group where every head sits at the same level reads as a row of people waiting for a bus; a 150–250 mm difference between adjacent figures is enough to break the line without looking accidental. Plinths do this cheaply, and they also solve a practical problem: a raised figure cannot be knocked over by a pushchair.

Store layout

Where mannequins belong inside the shop

Inside the store, mannequins do a different job than they do in the window. In the window they stop traffic; inside they route it. Three positions do most of that work:

The threshold figure: One mannequin 1.5–2 m inside the door, angled back into the shop. It pulls people off the doorway line and away from the entrance crush. One is enough; two create a bottleneck.
The centre island: Two or three figures on a raised platform, visible from the door over the heads of other shoppers. This is where the seasonal story lives, and it is the position that justifies a plinth with wheels.
The fitting-room approach: A single torso form, no head, no arms, at 1,500 mm centre height. It shows the garment without competing with the customer about to try it on — a full figure here reads as a queue marker.

Floor protection is part of the layout decision. A 17.6–19.6 kg fibreglass figure on a round disc concentrates load on one small contact patch. On timber or polished stone, that patch marks within weeks. Felt or silicone pads under the base are cheaper than resurfacing a floor — see mannequin bases and stands for load ratings by base type.

Planning

The year in four quarters

Retail windows run on a fixed calendar, and the ordering deadline always lands earlier than the display deadline. With a 2–4 week production window and 5–6 weeks of sea freight, a seasonal window needs to be ordered about ten weeks before it opens. Air freight cuts that to five, at roughly three to four times the freight cost.

Table 3 — Seasonal windows by quarter, and when to order
Quarter	Window theme	Display opens	Order by
Q1	January reset, new-season tailoring	Early January	Late October
Q2	Spring colour, summer preview	April	Late January
Q3	Back to school, then Halloween	August, then early October	Late May
Q4	Christmas and holiday	Early November	Late August

The month-by-month version, with the order-by date for each of the twelve windows, is on the window display guide. The three peak seasons each ask for different figures, different palettes and a different lighting approach: back to school, Halloween and Christmas.

All guides

Start with these three

Most window and shop-floor decisions come down to three things: how the window is built, how many figures the floor plan can carry, and what they stand on. These three go deepest.

Seasonal windows

Back to school mannequinsAge bands rather than fixed sizes, uniform styling, and the May order date.
Halloween displaysFour themes with prop lists, and why the order lands in July.
Christmas windowsThree themes, a 50/30/20 budget split, and the August cut-off.

Hardware and workshop

Bases and standsGlass, iron and timber; round, square and tripod; packed weight and floor contact.
Inside the workshopHow a fibreglass figure is moulded, cast, seamed, painted and checked.

From the blog

Send us your floor plan

Tell us the window width, the ceiling height and the season you are dressing. We will come back with a mannequin count, a suggested pose mix and a delivered cost — usually within two working days.

Send your floor plan Browse the collection

ART WING Display Mannequin, a China manufacturer of high-end-mid mannequins.

We dedicated to innovative design and focus on producing high-quality display production.

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