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Electric Chair Window Display Puts Buzz in Bleecker St. Horror Show

By Andrea Swalec | October 22, 2012 7:16am

WEST VILLAGE — With Halloween fast approaching, high-end stores have turned Bleecker Street into an haute horror show — complete with taxidermied animals, a metallic monster and an alarmingly realistic electric chair.

The Marc by Marc Jacobs Men's store at 382 Bleecker St. leads the pack of the tony retail strip's best seasonal window displays, with a wooden chair that hosts a heap of empty menswear using belts by the brand.

Store assistant manager Dan Donigan said the chair, which is guarded by a skeleton and a mannequin with a rat's head, has drawn loads of attention since it was set up recently.

"A lot of people have asked if it's real," he said, "and have said it's kind of creepy and sadistic."

The chair was bought from a Halloween store, and the skeleton — with transparent arms full of blue and red wires — was made by Brooklyn-based design group The Guild, Donigan said.

Across the street, a wrapped-up dressmaker's dummy in the window of the Ralph Lauren RRL store at 381 Bleecker St. rivals the creepiness of the Marc Jacobs window by crawling with furry mice.

A store manager said the display, filled with anchors and chains, draws on one of the company's clothing trends.

"It was inspired by our Royal Navy line, so [the window] has an old, creepy ship theme," said the manager, who declined to give her name.

Farther south on the block, the Alexis Bittar jewelry store at 353 Bleecker St. showcases the brand's baubles on taxidermied animals.

A chunky gold bracelet is looped around the ears of a white rabbit, and another jewel is clutched by a stuffed squirrel.

At the Cynthia Rowley store at 376 Bleecker St., mannequins with dark-eyed "Day of the Dead"-inspired masks model white and black dresses.

Jacobs also offers up a display of Halloween ghouls at another of his Village stores, at 403 Bleecker St.

The window of the Marc by Marc Jacobs Women's store features a fierce metal monster with a branded tote bag in its teeth, penned inside a lush, imitation jungle.