They’re grinning and bearing it.
The city’s most spectacular holiday window isn’t at one of the big department stores, it’s at the Ralph Lauren Upper East Side flagship. There, a 5-foot-tall, 3D interactive rendering of the label’s iconic Polo Bear delights passerby with his animated antics — so much so that people often Facetime from the window to show friends.
“I’ve never seen anything like this bear before,” said Ashley Henderson, a 22-year-old from Milford, New Jersey, who was visiting the city with her mom on Monday. “It’s very cool.”
The tuxedo-clad bear takes his cues from the audience. When spectators come within two and a half meters of the window on 72nd Street at Madison and wave to the bear, he starts moving, sipping a martini, playing the piano, dancing and blowing kisses. He’ll even pose for selfies — turning his back to his audience and taking out a phone to snap a picture — for those who are patient.
Henderson had to wait several minutes, but the bear went into selfie mode.
“I will definitely put him on Snapchat,” she told the Post.
As she headed to Rockefeller Center to look at more windows, she anticipated being let down by other festive displays.
“I’m going to be sad if I see a window that doesn’t interact with me,” she said.
According to Ralph Lauren, it took six months to develop the installation alongside CINIMOD, a studio that specializes in interactive and immersive experiences and is based in London — where a similar hi-tech window is bringing cheer to Christmas shoppers. The bear is powered by a custom-made AI model that makes the whole thing look eerily real.
Even jaded Manhattanites can’t resist his charms.
Jason Wendell, 48, a captain in the FDNY who works around the corner from the store, makes a point of passing by and interacting with the bear daily.
“Is the bear my friend?” he said. “We are getting there. I don’t know if we are on a first name basis but maybe by Christmas.”
Ritika Kapoor, 33, an architect who lives on the Upper East Side, spent some time at the window while out on a recent walk to exercise.
“I pass by this store all the time, and I would not normally stop for a holiday window,” she said. “But … I want to see what the bear is doing.”
She just has one complaint about the window: While the cocktail the bear drinks is, like him, virtual, it makes her thirsty.
“He is drinking a martini, and it makes me want one, too,” she said. “Ralph Lauren really should sell cocktails here so we can drink with the bear.”
