The Inspired Home Show and International Housewares Association (IHA), the global sponsors and organisers of the IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia) program, have revealed the Global Honourees for the gia Top Window Awards.
The announcement was made during the ‘Winning Visual Clicks/gia Top Window Award’ presentation by gia expert juror, Anne Kong during the Connect FALL event last week.
The Global Honorees in the Small Company category are Cook Inc. – The Culinary Store in Argentina and Premium Home in Poland. In the Large Company category, Francfranc in Japan and Harrods in the UK (pictured above) were awarded accolades.
The Top Window Award is a new awards program under the gia umbrella, introduced earlier this year, to show support to the retailers in the home and housewares industry.
“We wanted to honour the hard work and innovation of home and housewares retailers around the world during the time of the pandemic,” IHA president, Derek Miller said.
“As visual merchandising and displays are a key element in the gia retail competition, recognising and celebrating the best window displays was the right effort to take. Everyone at IHA would like to thank each company that submitted an entry into the competition and to congratulate our four winners.”
As with the general gia Retail Awards, the Top Window competition is structured on a two-tier level, national and global. Co-sponsoring the country-specific gia Top Window programs with IHA are housewares trade publications worldwide, who sponsor national gia programs in their respective countries, nominating the best windows for the global competition.
The global jury evaluated home and housewares windows based on originality and creativity including theme, concept and special effects, merchandise presentation and professionalism in execution and technical aspects including lighting, attention to detail, signage and copy.
The four gia Top Window Global Honorees of 2021 will be invited to The Inspired Home Show 2022 in Chicago and honoured at an awards dinner on 5 March, together with the other gia winners.