The arrival of the Chelsea Flower Show heralds the imminent arrival of summer, and with it, the impulse to reinvigorate the garden for a season of outdoor festivities and the hazy promise of fruits and blooms.
Fashion has long been fascinated by the garden, from Regency promenades amid the ornamental grounds of London parks as a means to be seen in the fashions of the day, to the masters of mid-century couture, who drew inspiration from the colours and contours of nature. Like Christian Dior, whose perennial love of gardens emerged from watching his mother tend roses at his Normandy childhood home, Villa des Rhumbs, or Yves Saint Laurent, who rescued the blue-hued Jardin Majorelle in Morocco from demolition in the 1980s.
More recently, they found a successor in Dries Van Noten, whose own 55-acre garden outside of Antwerp would inspire his fashion collections until he departed from his eponymous label after 38 years last June (though the garden continues to inform the brand’s beauty line, which he still oversees). ‘The garden balances me as a human being,’ he told Wallpaper* previously. ’In fashion, you try to control everything. But in the garden, you have to obey nature. It helps me to stay humble.’
Here, as selected by the Wallpaper* style team, an assemblage of fashion and accessories both designed for, and inspired by, the garden – whether for the expert horticulturist or the pot-plant curious. The objects chosen span the functional – toolbelts, aprons and the like – to something more fantastical, including an intriguing tomato-scented soap, a far-from-understated sun hat, or a truly luxurious riff on the gardener’s basket.
Milan-based label Rovi Lucca was founded by fashion veterans Fabrizio Taliani and Bradley Seymour after spending the pandemic tending the serene gardens of Taliani’s grandmother’s villa outside of Lucca, Italy. Billed ‘premium utility wear for garden lovers', this soft linen-blend set – comprising a bucket hat, apron and ‘anorak’ – encapsulates the pair’s romantic approach.
For gathering produce or flowers, a basket remains an essential gardener’s vessel. This raffia bag by Loewe – handcrafted in Spain from raffia leaves cultivated by artisans in Morocco, with a leather handle and golden ‘pebble’ fastening – might be a little too precious for such proximity to mud and dirt, but it indulges our bucolic fantasies nonetheless.
A new collection from Burberry sees creative director Daniel Lee look towards Highgrove, the Gloucestershire estate of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, which is well-known for its impressive gardens (when in residence, the King will still patrol the famous 15-acre estate ’with a pruning saw in hand’). This version of Burberry’s trench is made specially for the collaboration, featuring a vivid floral print interior by artist Helen Bullock.
Family-run business Hestra – named after the small Swedish town from which the brand hails – has been hand-crafting gloves since 1936. Their near-century of expertise is poured into these leather gardening gloves, which are now available from Swedish retailer Arket and feature an elongated cuff to protect the arm – perfect for negating the risk of thorns or stings from errant undergrowth.
Belgian designer Dries Van Noten has long drawn inspiration from his beloved 55-acre garden in Lier, just outside of Antwerp. Since exiting his eponymous label last year – and leaving behind fashion after four decades – he continues to work on his brand’s beauty line, which takes olfactory inspiration from a garden through the seasons. Neon Garden captures this verdant approach: a fresh of blast of spearmint and carrot is designed to ‘shake and heckle’ the classicism of iris, says nose Fanny Bal.
A transformative trip to Japan in the late 1990s originally inspired Jake Hobson to create Niwaki, which is best known for its superlative gardening tools created by Japanese craftspeople, from secateurs to the ‘Hori Hori’, a Japanese trowel. We recommend that any budding horticulturist add these implements to their toolbox – they come highly Wallpaper* recommended – or, indeed, slot them into Niwaki’s handy canvas tool pouch, which can be looped onto a belt or worn over the shoulder for hands-free gardening.
This month, Niwaki also teamed up with country hotel The Newt in Somerset on a collection which draws inspiration from the latter’s sprawling 800-acre working estate and ornamental gardens. New for the collaboration is this ‘Samue’ jacket which draws on traditional Japanese workwear and is cut for ease of movement – whether pruning at height or simply relaxing in the sun.
The grassy aroma of tomato is evocative of warm days in the garden, a scent cleverly harnessed by Jonathan Anderson during his tenure at Loewe for the house’s home fragrance line (though he has recently departed, the range remains part of Loewe’s olfactory offering). This ‘Tomato Leaves’ liquid soap brings the outside in, and provides an elegant way to wash off the mud and dirt after an afternoon tending the borders.
Another means of protection, the straw hat has long been an essential gardening accessory for shielding the sun’s rays during long days outdoors. This wide-brimmed version by Loro Piana is a suitably luxurious – and satisfyingly dramatic – way to do so: handcrafted in Ecuador, it features honeycomb-weave straw allowing for a cooling flow of air.
Available in colourful hues of ‘stain’ blue (above) and rich ‘claret’ – as well as crisp white ‘porcelain’ – this Tekla apron can be used in kitchen and garden, or between the two. True to the Copenhagen-based label’s textile expertise, each is made from 100 per cent French flax linen in Portugal.
Every gardener’s toolkit should be completed with good hand cream, primed to salve and soothe after a day of hard work. As with the rest of the Parisian house’s superlative oeuvre, this Hermès hand cream is the very best, a rich, enveloping formulation with white mulberry extract which ‘smooths and unifies’ the skin.
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