The showroom of the Triál Sports, Toy, and Musical Instruments Commerce Company at no. 22–24 Károly (formerly, Tanács) Boulevard in 1971. #198940 Fotó: Fortepan / Zoltán Szalay

Redressed

A Brief History of Hungarian Window Display Dressing

The window display is an exhibition: An interesting, sometimes bizarre, sometimes harmonious arrangement of all sorts of objects, that draws our attention: as the Hungarian saying goes, “All for the eyes, but nothing for the hands.” Shop windows sometimes lure us with an air of abundance, sometimes, they are ashamed testimonies of scarcity. We either take pleasure in looking at them or are appalled at their sight. There are just so many different ways to dress a window display.

Feather-bedding, brushes, and Neapolitan wafers

Window displays existed even before people realized it. Tiny repair shop doors were left wide open in the suburbs of the capital city and in smaller towns, and shoemakers, feather duvet manufacturers, and locksmiths stood next to their doors in the summer sun. They themselves constituted the window display: seeing the well-known face of a trusted craftsman attracted more customers than a nicely dressed window and a clever catchphrase, or the obligatory sign containing the name and profession with a few items in the shop window. It is very unlikely that the feather bedding maker Mrs. Mohai Istvánné in the below photo was sought after because her customers were attracted by the pair of geese sitting in her shop’s window.

“Quilt making”, Csanády Street 3, Budapest, 1981. #107834 Photo: Fortepan / Benjamin Makovecz

The merchants and craftsmen came out to the light from their dark shops, living and breathing together with the street. Unfortunately, more and more of them started to lose their jobs with the advent of Capitalism and the subsequent overabundance of products and changes in lifestyle; the small craftmen’s shops disappeared. Or did they really? There are still a few “survivors” in Budapest. For instance, at no. 3 Dob Street, we can find a paintbrush and brush manufacturer founded in the 1920s, and in Újpest, the Szélesi Family, admired by many, is still producing wafers behind the curtain of their shop windows, with a handwritten sign containing the list of Neapolitan wafers sold, including salty wafers and the typical Hungarian confectionery “winter ice cream,” attracting many curious passerbys.

Balatonmáriafürdő, Coutn Imre Széchényi Square 1 (Ady Endre Street), in the doorway, Lajos Miskovits, the owner of the shop. #71857 Photo: Fortepan / Tivadar Lissák

Not all craftsmen or merchants were lucky enough to rent a place directly opening onto the street: most of the little shops opened onto the patio of the large tenement houses, whether on the ground floor or in the basement. There was no direct connection to passers-by, only, usually, a sign at the entrance indicating that a craftsman was working inside. A lucky few had a display cabinet next to or inside the entrance of the building that could be dressed. These days Budapest is full of such display cabinets lacking an owner.

1973. #89767 Photo: Fortepan / Tamás Urbán

Corruptors of Women

It was well-known as early as the 19th century that the window display was a deadly weapon. Sándor Balázs wrote about the malicious character of window displays in the December 1878 issue of Hölgyek Lapja (Women’s magazine). “I want to speak out against window displays. […] I am angry about them, I even hate them, because of all the harm they do to people. It is window displays that make most women dissatisfied, that make the young ladies unhappy, and that wreak havoc on fathers and husbands. […] They incite the mind to fantasy and seduce and break poor hearts. Of every ten fallen women, nine were drawn into the abyss by shop window displays, and they are the main cause of the initial discord in failed marriages.” According to Balázs, shop window displays are doing “the snake’s or the devil’s work” by offering their products in an appealing way. A hundred years later, it in fact tended to be women who choose a career in window dressing and decoration—at the end of the 1970s, newspapers write about the feminization of the industry.

“Let’s put a book in every worker’s hand,” reads the sign in the window of a shoe shop on Oktogon, Budapest, in 1949. #33151 Photo: Fortepan / Márton Ernő Kovács
#72160 Photo: Fortepan / Tivadar Lissák

A brief history of Hungarian shop window dressing

The first, rudimentary window displays appeared in Budapest in the 1850s. However, these were arranged by employees with a taste for visuals or by applied artists hired for the work, instead of professional window dressers. The first Hungarian school of decoration and window dressing was opened in 1910. However, one can find a contradicting piece of information when reading a 1936 article in the newspaper Népszava about the the first professional window dresser in Hungary, József Kertész, according to which he started working at one of the shops on Kristóf Square in 1891.

Orosháza, no 70 Könd Street, 1983. #75698 Photo: Fortepan / Attila Jankó
Half kilo of meringues (habcsók) costs 20 forint at the Uránia confectionery shop on Rákóczi Avenue in 1958. #113562 Photo: Fortepan / Sándor Bauer

Hungarian window dressers followed the style of Western countries (such as Germany and France) from the start: in the 1920s, the Corvin Department Store proudly presented a German-style window display design and the Fashion Salon—naturally—followed the French style. German influence is evident from Hungarian technical terms, such as szokli and dütnik; szokli, meaning base, is derived from the German Sockel. This period was basically the golden age of window dressing in Hungary, for after both World War I and World War II, a decline followed.

The window display of the Corvin Department Store on Blaha Lujza Square in 1977. #207070 Photo: Fortepan / FŐFOTÓ

The economic recovery and boom of 1950s did not bring stylish and beautiful window displays in Hungary, as shop managers considered shop windows “a storage area with a single glass wall,” which led to overcrowded and cluttered shop windows. According to László Kárpáti, who is considered the most knowledgeable person in Hungary regarding the Hungarian and international history of window dressing, in the 1960s, the Szivárvàny, Luxus, and Csemege department stores, as well as the RÖLTEX textile company’s stores had the most beautifully dressed windows.

No. 11 Ferenciek Square (formerly, Felszabadulás Square), 1972. #87781 Photo: Fortepan / Tamás Urbán

The Luxus Department Store maintained its prominent place on the list of best dressed shop windows in the 1980s, and other department stores, such as the Fontana (being demolished as this essay is being written) and the Úttörő also excelled in clever window dressing. However, a journalist in the daily Népszava complained about the window displays of the Csillag and the Verseny department stores: The former’s entrance was “so rusty it almost fell apart,” and the latter could use some thorough window cleaning. The lingerie shop Aranypók on Kossuth Lajos Street also received criticism: the window display of men’s fashion was decorated with a “cheap pinwheel sold in village festivals,” wrote the indignant journalist.

The window of the Úttörő Department Store at no. 7-9 Kossuth Lajos Street in 1970. #209000 Photo: Fortepan / FŐFOTÓ
The Fortuna Department Store, 1990. #76444 Photo: Fortepan / Katalin Erdei

The Window Dressing and Decoration School in Osvát Street

The official education of window dressers started in 1955 in the Hungarian School of Window Dressing and Decoration, which became a separate institution in 1972. The school was located in Osvát Street, with a two-year program for high-school graduates who passed an entrance exam. At the end of the 1970s, the magazine Budapest reports that three times as many students applied as places were offered. “We are glad about this but we also see a downside. The students are not aware of what they are applying for. In many cases, they confuse it with the School of Applied Arts or the School of Fine Arts. It is hard for them to accept that this is not an art school but a vocational school,” the director Vilmos Czétényi explained. By the end of the second year, many of them would drop out, and only the most dedicated stayed and made a career afterwards; unlike their original idea about it, the work was actually rather demanding—they had to dress windows in the freezing cold of the winter and close to heat-stroke conditions in the summer, moving quite heavy loads of merchandise.

The Window Dressing School at no. 3 Osvát Street, in the beginning of the 1970s. #88296 Photo: Fortepan / Tamás Urbán

Store Managers vs. Window Dressers; Or, Is Less More?

“It is not up to us what we put in the windows,” said Mrs. Lászlóné Hegedűs, one of the window dressers of the Otthon Furniture and Home Accessories Store, when questioned by a reporter in 1979. Window dressers and store managers took turns complaining to journalists. The problem of shop windows lacking in creativity was rooted in the industry and not in the window dressers themselves: for decades, there was only one Hungarian producer of mannequins, so the stores had to import others from abroad (Italy, Switzerland, or Spain), and there were issues even with the imported ones. In 1971, a reporter for the daily Magyar Nemzet wrote the following about the Capital City’s Clothing Store: “The mannequins are indeed more expressive, but they are perhaps a bit too realistic. One of them looks like as if it was entering a murder scene in an Agatha Christie book, while the other one looks upwards with an ecstatic smile as if she was reciting a poem at a acting school exam.”

But mannequins were just one of the crucial factors in installing a window display. Self-adhesive wallpapers and offset paper were in short supply and it was also difficult to obtain paint. Lacking a properly working decoration industry, props were created under poor conditions, in the basements of small decoration studios, in questionable quality. Window dressers, who were considered Swiss Army Knifes, had to rely on their own ingenuity and creativity.

“Russians, go home!” Erzsébet (Lenin) Boulevard, next to Hotel Royal (today Corinthia Hotel) during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. #23684 Photo: Fortepan / Tibor Juricza

Window displays that contained fewer objects arranged tastefully were often criticized by store managers. “I don’t know what these students are taught at the window dressing and decoration school, but these window dressers come full of ambition, and they ‘artistically’ place just one or two blouses and skirts, even though we have many colors and styles in the store for the customer to choose from,” the store manager Hedvig F. complained to the magazine Budapest in 1983. In the case of big stores, filling the shop window with products was a must, of course.

The radio program “Napközben” (Daytime) is broadcasting from the shop window of the so-called Modellház on Ferenciek (formerly, Felszabadulás) Square in 1987. #56348 Photo: Fortepan / Radio and Television Magazine / Zoltán Szalay

We consulted the Arcanum Digitheca during the writing of this article.

Text: Kitti Mayer | Photo Editor: István Virágvölgyi | Translation: Nóra Vörös [The original article was published in Hungarian]

The Weekly Fortepan blog is a collaboration between Fortepan and the Capa Center. The original Hungarian article can be found at: https://hetifortepan.capacenter.hu/kirakatok

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