Craig Canant

Craig Conant, Coporate Visual Director, Nine West Group

"Anyone who has worked in visual merchandising will tell you that heat generation is a real problem," explains Craig Canant, Corporate Visual Director of the Nine West Group."With conventional lighting, display items melt or the UV rays discolour clothing.It's really unpleasant to work in the windows."Nine West solved this problem by installing C-Series fixtures, the flagship line of products based on Chromacore technology, in a window display for its 5th Avenue store in New York City."I was amazed when I went back into the store window after installing the lights.There was absolutely no heat," said Canant.

In addition to the functional benefits of the technology, Nine West made good use of the aesthetic capabilities to add impact to its retail displays.Canant utilized the C-Series fixtures to create a motion-based display in the Nine West New York Showroom."We used clear acrylic blocks and fixed everything with the same timing, and the same colour in a kind of 'wave' that really flows.The display uses two pedestals, a frosted cube as a base and an acrylic cube on top, with the C-Series underlighting them.The lights provide a slow melding of the colours that make the cubes glow."The effect, says Canant, is "enchanting.They draw the customer in and rivet attention on the product.It's almost like having a lighting paintbox, which you can use to actively shape, and re-shape, the display environment."

Each model has its own built-in intelligence for stand alone operation, or they can accept external control from a PC or from standard professional lighting controllers.

The possibilities for designing with color and light are endless.