Because Nothing Says "Quality Shoes" Like Tragedy and Death

By Andrew Peerless in Miscellaneous on Mar 8, 2005 7:30PM

Store window buzz in this town usually revolves around Marshall Field's legendary holiday creations, a State Street tradition since 1897, or everyone's favorite mannequin-comes-to-life-and-seduces-Andrew-McCarthy-in-a-hammock film classic. However, as the Sun Times is reporting, a slightly different kind of display on the north end of State is drawing some not-so-positive attention.

G'Bani Shoes, a Gold Coast boutique well known for hawking expensive designer kicks to fancy folks, is raising eyebrows and blood pressure with window displays featuring Nazi swastika flags, Ku Klux Klan members and burning World Trade Center towers. All the windows also feature black block lettering reading, "never again," but some people seem so irked that they haven't really noticed.

Owners Trevian Kutti and B.J. G'Bani, who are African American, receive 15 to 20 calls per day from people that are outraged by their store's windows. The husband-and-wife duo are used to the feedback, though... claiming they use their location along the traffic-heavy street to "impact society" and make people think, Kutti and G'Bani have dabbled in decidedly left-leaning windows in the past: an election-time response to war featured dismembered bloody mannequins, while last year's Black History Month display included portions labeled "Whites Only" and "Colored Only." Preach on.

Oh, and they swear it's not for publicity, but if it is... well, it worked.

Image courtesy of chapelhill.indymedia.org