“Ask Beau” – “What’s the deal with your window displays?”
Ha! There’s no “deal” with my attempt at creativity John B from Marin. My window display has always been my sanctuary! I love it. I think about window displays all of the time. I was so into it I almost started another business called www.windowdresser.com which would have featured real time pictures of window displays all over the globe to check out current fashion and creativity. So why do I do it for sake? I like disarming people about sake and my attempt to make sake artistic is a way for me to bring people into the store via something different.
The window displays at True Sake have been written about in the SF Chronicle and are endlessly photographed. It gives me such personal satisfaction when I see people on the street stop and really look at the window displays. I really love it when they take pictures. My favorite however is when I look like a dork in the window making a new display. People stop and give me thumbs up and then on occasion they will walk into the store and say, “You have the best window displays in the city.” I love that! It makes all the effort worthwhile. So thank you for those who enjoy the windows.
Some ask which are my favorite windows and sadly they were so long ago that I never took pictures of them. One classic was a window of filled sheets with red wine stains and a piece of carpet with a tipped over red wine glass that had sloshed out and stained the white carpet red – it had the sign that said “Sake Doesn’t Stain”! One of the most talked about window displays was my attack window on AT&T that basically called their wireless services losers and an Epic Fail! I had a lot of bottles with labels that read, “Can You Hear Me?” and “Zero Bars” and “Hello?” as the name of the sake. The slogan was Thank God AT&T Doesn’t Make Sake! I was so pissed at their pathetic service in Hayes Valley that I put the window up as a protest! It was so effective that guys from Sprint and Verizon would stop their vans and take pictures. AT&T was so pissed that eventually the head of AT&T Wireless division came to the store and asked what it would take to remove the display? I’m not sellout so I said that if they would give a wireless tower to whichever businesses in Hayes Valley wanted one I would take it down! I did and they did.
Some former employees hated when I did window displays because they would always have to explain them to the numerous folks who would pop their heads in and say what does the window display mean? Ha! Some windows were seen as racist when I had boxes of Uncle Tom’s Rice with the slogan Uncle Tom doesn’t do sake! Come on? Really? Other window displays sold for money! No kidding! I have sold two pieces of “art.” One was a huge Apple monitor with a sake bottle protruding out of the cracked screen. And oddly people always ask if I’m selling certain components of window displays that are my own personal items. Why didn’t they ask to buy the 9 used upright carpet vacuums that I bout at a flea market for $90 with the slogan “Sake Doesn’t Suck!” Ha!
Lynette once made a book of my window displays for a Christmas present and that book is on display in the store if you want to check it out!
So in a word the window display is my passion and it’s my artistic release. And quite frankly it’s time for a new window display as I type this!