Banana Republic, London

Regent st. here in London is buzzing right now.  With the pending opening of the new Burberry and .........OK well, we're less that enthusiastic about Hollister...... but then Austin Reed, Aquascutum and Habitat weren't cutting it so we guess is was only ever going to be inevitable with their arrival here.  But anyway, the British determination to make Art statements thankfully prevails and this year the Regents Street Windows project is ever more welcome.  At Banana, the Architects Ushida Findlay and Visitor Studio have this incredible installation in place to entertain, to provoke and amaze us all.  We weren't massively drawn in initially, but then that could be something to do with the 'plastique' Zebras in Banana's regular windows, however, we soon discovered that this splash like form is actually laser cut animals in a tinted Eco resin; ever more visible in a photograph.  We aren't sure that it 'revokes childhood memories of play while capturing the theme of Banana Republic' - doesn't this sounds as if it has been badly translated and has that hint of nauseous sentimentality about it?  That said, it does look incredibly so damned good and we would have loved to have seen this in all of the windows here.  Although, its OK, we have 'plastique-my-little-Zebras' to view instead and that's OK, right?