Habitus is lucky enough have its headquarters smack bang in the middle of the hive of creativity that is Surry Hills – where designers, architects and artists inhabit pretty much every corner.
The group that brought us Small Stories, Big Picture earlier this year has again come together to create Surry Hills Open Late for the next 3 weeks in the lead up to Christmas – with retailers involved staying open til 9 on Thursday.
As part of this they also encouraged participants to create Christmas window displays. I was honoured to be chosen as one of the judges for the competition, along with the lovely Andrea Jones of SMH and stylist and Habitus contributor, Megan Morton.
We traversed the hills one evening peering into beautiful and ingenious Christmas scenes. From a Toy-Story-inspired scene at Metalab to a Christmas wreath of bones at Hudson Meats, each entrant took the brief and ran with it.
The verdict was unanimous, with first prize awarded to Paper2 on Crown Street for their paper-inspired scene, with everything from books for a Christmas tree to a paper fireplace and paper curtains – it conjured up a traditional sense of Christmas while using Paper2’s wares very creatively.
Special mentions went to the displays at Vampt, using their furniture to create capsules of Christmas cheer, while Helix clothing on Crown street took out the fashion section with it’s colourful, non-traditional take on Yule-tide.
If you’re in the hills for Christmas you should definitely get around to see all the windows – and maybe get your shopping done at the same time.
Have you seen any amazing Christmas windows where you live? Tell everyone about them in the comments below.
SHAI (Surry Hills Association Incorporated)
surryhillsassoc.com/openlate
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