Eaton’s holiday-themed windows on display at Winnipeg museum
Posted December 13, 2022 5:04 pm.
Window displays were a holiday highlight at Eaton’s stores across the country.
While the Canadian department store closed for good in 1999, people looking for a window into the past can now step back in time at the Manitoba Children’s Museum.
Fifteen holiday-themed vignettes are on display throughout the season. Classic tales like Cinderella, Rumpelstiltskin and the Three Blind Mice among others come to life with the push of a button in this fully restored Eaton’s fairytale display.
“People from a long time ago remember going into Eaton’s and visiting this year after year. From its opening in 1905 it really coined itself as a holiday location,” said Andrea Brickwood, the director of education and exhibits at the Manitoba Children’s Museum.
In the past the vignettes created a walk way to Santa, and Brickwood says they were a big attraction for shoppers. After Eaton’s declared bankruptcy and the store chain closed for good, the Museum inherited the displays.
Former Eaton’s window display manager Giles Bugailiskis thinks it’s incredible the mechanical dolls were saved and are still bringing smiles to the people who see them decades later.
“Nobody makes mechanical windows, or mechanical dolls anymore, it’s a lost art,” said Bugailiskis.
Starting at just 20 years old, Bugailiskis would travel twice a year to New York to see what was on trend for window displays and bring inspiration back to Winnipeg. Bugailiskis says he would often start working on his displays months in advance.
“By early spring we would start thinking about what we would do for Christmas windows,” said Bugailiskis.
Bugailiskis left Eaton’s in the ’80s but still recalls the extraordinary craftsmanship it took to keep the robotic figures spinning and twirling all day long. In their new home, the dolls only move for a few seconds at a time when activated by visitors.
“We installed the buttons for them instead of switches because it was much easier on all of the different components and motors and things to be able to be by push button rather than working all the time,” said Brickwood.
The displays are available to view until Jan. 8.
