Dec 23, 2008

Storefronts that say: Joy to the worldBy Patricia TaloricoDelawareOnline.com

Matthew F. Garwacki doesn’t just deck the halls, not when he can wrap yards of nylon ribbon around his store and make it look like a colossal Christmas present waiting to be ripped open.

His motto for the past two decades: If you’re going to decorate, do it big, bold and breathtaking.

One of the most enduring, smile-inducing and statement-making holiday sights in Trolley Square, if not all of Delaware, is the mammoth red bow enveloping Cherishables, Garwacki’s funky and eclectic gift shop.

This is the 20th season that the two-story work of art created by Garwacki’s late partner Clifton Bukovsky — complete with angels, wreaths, white lights and pots of red silk poinsettias — has brightened Delaware Avenue. The exterior lights come on at dusk and shut off at 1 a.m. through Jan. 3.

The idea for wrapping the brick 19th-century townhouse/store came from Bukovsky, a former decorator and window dresser for Cartier, the venerable Parisian jeweler in New York City. The tradition at the landmark location on Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street has long been to decorate the structure with a huge red bow.

When Garwacki and Bukovsky moved to Wilmington in the late 1980s to open Cherishables, the New York residents brought the building ribbon-wrapping custom with them.

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