Floral designer and TOAST Visual Merchandising Manager Paula Ellis has decorated our shop windows with a festive installation inspired by our seasonal concept, Celestial Celebrations. Featuring decorations handmade by artisans, like constellations in a night sky, they orbit a structure crafted using seasonal foliage and repurposed strips of fabric from past TOAST collections.
Over the course of our Autumn Winter 2024 collection, Patterns & Pathways, we have moved from the earthly to the ethereal, turning from the earth to the sky in the pursuit of understanding. Celestial exploration is expressed through delicate handcrafts, lustrous fabrics and an energetic palette. Paula interpreted this concept in our festive window display by celebrating the moons, comets, and planets that orbit the sun.
Deriving inspiration from planetary motion, Paula worked with craft wire to create elliptical structures, drawn in rounds as if in an orbital revolution. “You can use any kind of craft wire to create this arrangement,” Paula says. “It’s very adaptable.”
From the rounds of wire, Paula has suspended festive decorations. “I focused on the idea of orbs, bringing in handcrafted metal decorations, a material we have not worked with before in our festive windows, but that reflects light and creates a sense of warmth.” She also incorporated our hand-marbled baubles, made by artisans at a family-run business near Jaipur, India, realised in shades of lilac, coral and rich blue. When arranged as such, the cosmic palette feels like a contemporary take on the season’s festivities. “The collection feels really modern,” Paula says “We haven’t used the typical reds and greens of a traditional Christmas.”
To soften the wire structure, Paula added vibrant pops of colour by wrapping remnant fabric from our Autumn Winter 2024 collection around the loops of wire, allowing the strips to cascade like ribbons. The materials Paula used were taken from our swatch collection, used primarily in our Renewed workshops to give garments which have taken on signs of wear and tear a new lease of life.
As always in our festive window displays, Paula has incorporated natural elements, such as could be found in the garden, or out on a walk in nature. One of the principal elements in this year’s display has been old man’s beard, used to temper the coldness of the metal wire. “I love the movement you get from natural elements, especially the natural shape and texture of old man’s beard.”
Other gathered elements include pennycress, lichen-covered pine branches and nicandra (Chinese lantern seedpods), all chosen because they evoke the frosted elegance of the season.
Paula was able to visit her local flower farm, Black Shed in Dorset, to source locally-grown nigella, lupin seed pods and pennycress. Paula emphasises that any materials can be substituted with seasonal foliage or surplus fabrics found at home, for anyone wishing to recreate the display in their own windows or to hang over their festive table.
You can view our festive window installations in each of our UK shops. Share a photo with us on Instagram using #TOASTbeing.
Shop our festive decorations, from hand-marbled baubles to hammered metal decorations and paper garlands.
Photography by Ari Obi.
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