IN CONTRAST TO THE stunning but lone piece you might find in a Tiffany’s window display, Jorge Ronay creates small, busy worlds full of racing cars, cakes, coffee mugs, sports gear, even sealife, to fill the showcases of his St. Petersburg, FL, store.

Ronay says he learned everything he knows about lighting and displays from his days working at his father’s Mexico City jewelry stores.

“My father used to keep a 20-carat amethyst in his window, and people would come in to try it on,” Ronay says.

“I’m not Cartier or Tiffany to put one thing in the window. I have to invent things so people will walk up to my window and say ‘Look!’  The first thing is that people go close to your windows.  From there, my staff can take it, but you have to get them to look.”

At 16, Ronay began creating props and displays for his father’s stores. “I’ve always been very good with my hands,” he says. “I learned how to bend acrylic, how to do things in wood. My father took me to the New York jewelry show at the Hilton more than 30 years ago, and I always went to see the displays from Switzerland and everywhere in the world.

“You have to be very detail oriented. It’s hard to put it all together and make the display look professional and not cheesy.” — STORY BY TRACE SHELTON

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 This story is from the June 2010 edition of INDESIGN

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