Christmas starts in February for Gilberto Santana, the visual director at Henri Bendel (712 Fifth Ave at 56th St; 212-247-1100, henribendel.com). That’s when he and his team begin conceptualizing the store’s holiday window display, which encompasses not only the front windows, but also its sumptuous atrium. This year, Santana took his inspiration from 1920s fashion sketches in the Brooklyn Museum’s archives. Using unlikely materials like filmstrips and red licorice sticks, he worked with a team of more than 100 to reinterpret dresses made to order for the period’s Bendel customers. The result: a Jazz Age spectacle that recalls the retailer’s early-20th-century roots in high style.
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