The Window Warrior

As a self-proclaimed experiential creative director, visual merchandiser, visual curator and creative strategist, with almost two decades of experience under her belt, Samar Younes blends her background in architecture, art and design to create bespoke window displays for retailers around the world.

Drawing on a range of skills and using unique techniques to create experiences and tell stories through her work, the multi-faceted Lebanese-born Younes has worked on projects for some of the biggest names in retail, from Selfridges and Harrods to Barneys, Coach, Bloomingdales and Le Bon Marché.

“Unlike typical visual merchandising that primarily deals with merchandise curation and presentation, my multidisciplinary experiential creative approach draws from the variety of disciplines and skills acquired over the years, such as architecture, advertising, sound, lighting, fashion, culinary, interior, object, beauty and art curation,” Younes says, “injecting a new approach to visual merchandising that is artful and multi-sensory.”

After studying architecture in Lebanon, Younes moved to London where she pursued a degree in design for performance at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. Younes then relocated to New York where she got her start working on window displays for Anthropologie.

In addition to her stellar portfolio of projects, the 42-year-old has recently launched Samaritual, a consultancy and interdisciplinary design studio, which she hopes will allow her to broaden the scope of her work and empower her to work on more personal projects. “The future is all about the hybrid customer experience,” she says, “the experience in which customers engage with a brand in store in the new ‘digital, interactive, mobile, social’ realm.”

Words Tala Habbal