No, your eyes are not deceiving you and no, the Christmas windows at Lee’s Fifth Avenue Tropical Plaza and Sovereign Centre have not been transported from New York to Jamaica. What is true, however, is that they do look good and serve the purpose of luring you in.

The person behind the fabulous windows is Oriente Issa. It came about, she shares with All Woman Fashion (AWF), as a result of offering to help her brother-in-law with the windows at his stores. “I had never done it before… but I just thought that a new look could represent the store better,” she says.

Issa, a painter with a background in fashion, thought of doing the windows as a sort of conceptual art installation. Issa I also used two mannequins that were painted by the artist Alec from Right Brain Active Studios. She saw it more as an art project using the merchandise in Lee’s as the subject matter.

The project took a month of preparation, constructing the sets and the props, etc, with the installation taking less than a week.

The result: A strong message from Lee’s that high fashion is available in Jamaica. “When I started working on the project I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were many things in Lee’s that I used to think you had to go to Miami or New York to buy. From basics to trendy stuff,” she shares.

So are there plans to create any more beautiful windows?

“Yes, if Lee’s asks me nicely!” is her response. I reckon we’ll have to wait and see what 2017 brings.

Until then, AWF suggests Lee’s Fifth Avenue at Tropical Plaza and at Sovereign Centre for great windows and a solid dose of festive retail therapy.