The stores around Chelsea Flower Show do a “Chelsea in Bloom’ celebration during the show period, and they are often gorgeous. This year’s theme was Oriental Chelsea, here are our favourites.
Isn’t this the loveliest window? It’s Jo Malone in Sloane Street and not only has she built a cherry blossom tree that comes right out of the window, but the windows themselves are full of deep drifts of cherry blossom (there’s also a limited edition Sakura Cherry Blossom cologne on sale in the store). Our favourite window.
This is Emma Hope’s window, which she constructed and planted herself. The plants are held in by some old slate flagstones and the store window itself has her signature sneakers sitting in sand, as if on a beach. It has a lovely home-spun feel to it.
For some time Jane has been collecting china swans, she’s not sure why. Well she’s not alone it seems, here’s Anya Hindmarch’s store window in Sloane Street, which was full of china swans supporting lovely flower displays. Great minds an’ all that.
The Brora store just off Sloane Square won the prize for the most flowers in the window. The store smelt wonderful too.
These hand crafted flowers were suspended on a frame in the window of The Orange restaurant on the Pimlico Road. Each one was carefully made by chef Else-Marie and every little bit is made from sugar, and if you avoid the little bits of glue, you could eat ’em.
Best use of often over used orchids was from the Taschen book store in Duke of York’s Square. The store team had done it themselves and it had lots of charm. Sometimes the simple ideas are the best.
The Tiffany exterior looked particularly impressive on the corner of Sloane Square, with lengths of hand tied green bamboo encasing the store front. I wonder what they are doing with the bamboo sticks after the show? My tomatoes need a bit of support…..
The Jo Malone window is fantastic – how did they do that?