BTS: How John Lewis created their fabulous Chelsea In Bloom design this year
If you haven’t been able to make it along to this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, you can still enjoy some beautiful floristry and designs simply by having a wander through London's largest free-to-attend festival of flowers, Chelsea In Bloom. And we’re going behind the scenes at one of this year’s most impressive displays at the Peter Jones department store by John Lewis in Sloane Square.
Every May, shops throughout the Chelsea neighbourhood get involved by decorating their windows and exteriors in increasingly breathtaking and awe-inspiring designs, with Lucy Ashley, John Lewis' visual merchandise manager, revealing exactly what goes into making one come to life.
‘Each year, it gets more and more competitive and the pressure is certainly on to create the most magnificent display going,’ Lucy tells House Beautiful. ‘We start planning for our windows around five or six months in advance. When the nation is celebrating Christmas, we're already busy planning for summer!’
So what is this year's shop window all about? It's certainly the most extravagant and challenging window display in the branch's history.
'We're lucky to have two fantastic brands – John Lewis and Waitrose – as well as our own farm in Leckford, Hampshire, where we grow a number of products. We really wanted to incorporate each of these into our window this year, so came up with the idea to create a "John Lewis high street", complete with a general store stocking our own Leckford Farm products and a mocked-up coffee shop.
It includes more than 2,500 flower stems – including David Austin’s world-exclusive new rose named in tribute to designer Emma Bridgewater, plus carnations and chrysanthemums – and more than 1,000 potted herbs from their Leckford farm and plenty of small bedding plants.
But how long does it take for the final display to come together? Lucy estimates: 'It's taken us around 500 hours to put the windows together, from the start of planning the concept to the final display.’ In total they had around 10 people working on it at any one time and that includes from John Lewis’ own visual merchandising team and from display specialists at Sarah Feather Design.
Even though it’s months in the planning, ‘the actual floral construction didn’t start until the Friday before to ensure everything is fresh,’ Lucy tells us. ‘We also had a team working overnight on Sunday night into the early hours of Monday morning to make sure it was ready in time for customers.’
And if you ever wondered how everything stays fresh over the week of Chelsea In Bloom, Lucy revealed: 'Everything we've used is real, rather than artificial, so it needs to be meticulously tended to, to make sure it stays fresh. It'll be watered multiple times a day whilst on display, and we have some back up blooms that we'll be using to replace any weathered flowers throughout the week.’
Any leftover flower stems which cannot be repurposed will be donated to The Confetti Club, which specialises in creating biodegradable confetti (with all profits going to charity), while leftover herbs will be donated to The Felix Project. So, not only is the display bringing colour and cheer to this area of the capital but it will continue to do good for projects nearby.
‘The Chelsea Flower Show is the Christmas of summer,’ said Dominic Joyce, head of branch at Peter Jones. ‘The atmosphere is incredible and, being in the heart of Chelsea, we attract tens of thousands more visitors during that week alone.'
If you’ve not seen the display in person yet, you’ve got until Sunday 26th of May to get yourself down to the Sloane Street store.
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