But in the lean, clean 90's, an era of sleek architectural interiors, shutters have become a window dressing of choice, for everything from vast expanses of glass to small bathroom windows.
If you look really hard, you will find flashes of Christmas spirit – the scene with Brody and his son at dinner is practically Christmas incarnate – but that's all window dressing for a story about a shark that would kill you in a second if you let it.
But they should they are being used to promote the city's bid".Birmingham's civic boosters furiously deny that they are using ethnic minorities as a window-dressing for their campaign which, if successful, is unlikely to send tourists flocking to Lozells.
But all of that was, in a sense, window dressing for the much deeper and sadder tale that "Penny Dreadful" wanted to tell about the difficulty of connection and the strange beauty of grief.
Of course, even if all is as it seems and the update really did inspire the story idea rather than (as some cynics have suggested) being a nice bit of window dressing for a pre-existing proposal, it remains to be seen whether the adventures of Charlotte will ever actually reach the screen.
It is the definition of a cosmetic touch-up -- window dressing for a city that by the end of last year had wrapped up much of the construction of its Olympic facilities, which include 12 new venues, 11 existing ones updated for the Games and an additional eight temporary facilities for sports such as motocross, fencing and beach volleyball.
The uptake of Odinist branding may be a matter of convenience – window dressing for personality conflicts in a movement stacked with big egos.
Although Karzai himself is a Pashtun, many view him as window dressing for a US-devised realignment of long-established power relations, dating back to 2001 when the US toppled the overwhelmingly Pashtun Taliban.
Like Vice City, Hotline Miami doesn't ever engage its setting in an interesting way and instead break it down into a number of stylish props; it's ultimately window dressing for a game that's primarily concerned with letting you butcher well-dressed dudes in a variety of gruesome ways.
"Ultimately, there is a real conflict, but more important is the fact that this is just window dressing for a $10 billion bailout," said Harvey Rosenfield, an official at the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.
Her release has prompted a major global debate as to whether she is simply a pawn in a political game in which women and education are simply the "window dressing" for a much larger struggle.
