Raylin Diaz Suarez, an architect and designer from Santiago, traveled to New York as a child and with his mother visited the famous stores on Fifth Avenue. The store’s famous shop windows facing the street always seemed to catch his attention. After jobs with well-known designers such as Sully Bonelly and Diane von Furstenberg, he first became the creative director of rSquared and connected with the head visuals of different clients (among them Saks Fifth Avenue), as tells a story in Diario Libre. Eventually, he would become the design chief for the 32 windows at Saks Fifth Avenue.
In talking with Diario Libre, Diaz Suarez described how he went about preparing for the great window displays at Saks. He tells of examining clothes, studying trends, knowing the brands, creating “mood boards”, and even looking at street styles all before doing a mockup of the window. The feature explains that the architect makes it sound so easy.
Diaz Suarez describes what he does as “fleeting or momentary architecture” because it allows him to do projects at a rapid pace and back-to-back. When he was asked about the importance of these windows, he stressed the magnitude of the visual merchandising, especially for a company such as Saks, which uses the windows to attract customers. Diaz Suarez says the windows are big scale invitations.
When asked about taking the famous Santiago “Lechones” to the windows of a world-famous clothing retailer, he responded that it was part of his culture and it happened to fit in with a momentary trend called “embellishments.” He admits he brings his culture, education and way of thinking to his work every day.
Diaz Suarez has also worked with the Metropolitan Opera during the event known as the Met Gala, one of the most important fashion shows in the industry, and he received an invitation from Vogue magazine to work with them on a display window dedicated to the Met Gala.
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Diario Libre
29 October 2018
