isplay windows have been central to Canadian retailing since Timothy Eaton built Canada's first super-size department store in the 1880s. With the invention of plate glass at the turn-of-the-century, large store windows became a powerful marketing tool, inspiring the term “window shopping.”

Instead of simply giving shopkeepers a view of the street, windows gave pedestrians a view of the merchandise inside the store. And, over the years, the contents of those display windows – some magnificent and some mundane – have reflected the dreams and realities of Canadians.

The photograph below shows women walking past Eaton's fashion windows near the end of The First World War.

Click to see a larger image (80K)
Eaton's store façade, Toronto, 1918
T. Eaton Co. fonds
Reference Code: F 229-308-0-1700
Archives of Ontario, I0028637

Business, Family and God

• A Love Affair with Royalty
• The Enterprise
• Revolutionizing Retail
• Newsworthy Windows
• The Eaton's Timeline

s a Northern Irish immigrant, Timothy Eaton instilled in his family a love of Empire and respect for the monarchy that survived well into the 20th century. The fortunes of British monarchs and the nations they ruled inspired expensive and portentous displays of patriotism in windows and across entire storefronts. A gold-leaf statue of Queen Elizabeth II in a Queen Street window was the centrepiece of Eaton's lavish 1953 Coronation tribute.

The Magnificent

• The Symbolic Vocabulary
• Imperial Parade
  • Planning a Royal Tribute: 1937 Coronation
  • Planning a Royal Tribute: 1953 Coronation
• Five Coronation Centrepieces, 1953
• Eaton's at War
• Profit and Service

ach December, Eaton's flagship stores in Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg unveiled their annual Christmas windows. While there were displays of seasonal merchandise for adults, the fanciful children's windows were much less commercial. They were designed to add magic to the Yule season – and to entice families into the toy department. Toys, whether marching or not, were staples of the Christmas displays.

The Merry

• The Secular
• The Sacred

isplay windows added glamour to the sometimes dreary task of shopping. Whether setting trends or following them, Eaton's merchandisers made sure their windows showed off the wares in the best possible light. A review of those displays today reveals how Canada – or Eaton's view of it at least – changed over time.

Fashion, from hats to haberdashery, was the focus of most Eaton's windows. Furniture and home furnishings placed a distant second and third.

The Mundane

• Fashion According to Eaton's
• Household Goods Getting Better
• Shopping at Home and Abroad
• Buy Canadian

nspired by the display windows of department stores in New York City, Chicago, London and Paris, Eaton's executives poured resources into its display departments. Each of the four flagship stores had dozens of designers responsible for creating a look that would draw customers into the stores – and then clinched the sale with equally attractive interior displays of merchandise. Using props, fabrics and mannequins, well-trained visual display designers created theatrical settings worthy of the latest fashions.

The Designers

• Creative Minds
• The Planning Stage
• Changing Styles
• The Fabric of Art
• The Competition

he documents and images in this exhibit come from the T. Eaton Company Ltd. collection of the Archives of Ontario.

Curator Vid Ingelevics sifted through 90,000 company photographs to find images that trace the changing face of Canada and the department store chain that sometimes led and sometimes followed those changes.

To read Vid's curatorial statement, click here.

For more information about the collection, click here.

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