Newspaper Article 2017 – Artist saw window of opportunity

Artist saw window of opportunity

Michael Fowler
Historic Hawke’s Bay

Westerman & Co, as I wrote last week, was founded in 1911 by Ernest Westerman.

For such retail stores, window dressing was a most effective marketing tool, that is creating interesting window displays to draw people in.

Westerman’s put an island display through the corner of its post-1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake store on Russell and Heretaunga streets, where passers-by could see two window displays (this still exists today as the Hastings iSite).

Paul Franco was one of Westerman’s window dressers during the 1950s and 1980s, and I caught up with him recently.

His mother worked in the alteration department of a large department store in Feilding, John Cobb & Co.

Paul, who had shown artistic talent at school, secured a job working there for one of Australasia’s best window dressers.

“Just because we came from a little town didn’t mean we did little things,” he recalled.

Paul started at John Cobb & Co in April 1945, and to celebrate the end of the war in Europe, a window display of 25 panels of highlights of the war was in construction. Paul’s first job was to draw Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt on a panel each.

When Stetson began making hats in New Zealand after World War II, it had a New Zealand-wide window dressing competition, and John Cobb & Co entered.

Photos of the entries were sent to America to be judged. Paul remembers going to the bank to cash the £40 first-prize cheque after they won, a lot of money then.

The store also came first in the New Zealand Open window-dressing competition which Paul said was “not bad for a town of 6000 people”.

Paul wanted a change from Feilding, and on Wellington Anniversary Day in Feilding in 1958 he went to Hawke’s Bay because it was close and open for business. He met Jack Westerman, son of the founder.

Paul remembers thinking Westerman’s was stuck in 1928 in terms of its window displays.

Some time later he received a call from Westerman’s offering him a job. Paul accepted after more than 13 years working in Feilding, and moved to Hastings with his wife.

In Feilding Paul had looked after 13 windows, but at Westerman’s they told him not to worry about the Russell St South windows. It baffled him because the street was then a bus stop and attracted large foot traffic.

He needed an assistant, because he did not do things by halves and found himself often working outside business hours.

For Christmas in his first year at “Westies”, he needed staff to return at night to help him. Jack said the staff wouldn’t do it, but they did, all unpaid, just like Paul.

Choirboys were hand-made for the front windows and a sound system played Christmas music throughout the store, which was a novelty then.

Victor Westerman, the founder’s brother, worked from Westerman’s No 2 store, just along Heretaunga St East.

“Victor was apparently quite tight with money, but he approached me and said of the Christmas display: “Mr Franco, I appreciate what you have done” and quietly slipped me a £40 ($1500 in 2017) cheque.”

After some frustration at Westerman’s he went to another Hastings menswear store, Poppelwell’s.

A talented artist, a drawing of Churchill he made in the 1960s sold and now hangs in the Marine Parade Hawke’s Bay Club.

Paul was lured back to Westerman’s, was now able to hire an assistant and was given a proper budget with which to work.

Theme-based rather than, say, standard menswear displays were what he enjoyed most.

Peter Read (1923-1981) of the New Zealand television’s Night Sky looked in on a display on the American space programme in 1976.

“We did a big display . . .  a lady in Havelock gave me American coins and we also had a loan of a Hasselblad camera similar to the one that photographed the surface of the moon.

“Like all my promotions, this was designed to get people into the store . . . many had never been upstairs in Westerman’s until Peter Read came.”

The secret of Paul’s success is clear, he believes.

It is: “It’s got to be right, and by putting a lot of work into it.”

His career ended at Hallensteins Shoes in Tauranga, where he continued his successes. While there, a Tauranga-wide window dressing competition was held to celebrate a sister-city relationship with Hitachi, Japan. His store came first as judged by a Japanese man from Hitachi.

His last major win was when his window took out the New Zealand competition for the Shoe of the Year window display.

“It’s been a great life and I was lucky to get into it . . . lucky I could draw and found what I had a knack for.”

“Victor was apparently quite tight with money but . . . quietly slipped me a £40 ($1500 in 2017) cheque.”

Michael Fowler ([email protected]) is Art Deco Trust part-time heritage officer and accounting lecturer at EIT Hawke’s Bay.

Photo caption – MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: The crowd-pulling island window display which formed part of the Apollo display at Westerman & Co.
PHOTO: PAUL FRANCO