Exclusive: A Visit to the Secret Herb Garden of Scotland

In an exclusive interview published today, our friends at Freunde von Freunden spend the day with Scotland’s most passionate salad chef (she delivers them by bicycle to residents across Edinburgh) and discover the source of Joy Rose’s organically grown lettuces:

Photography by Gemma Lawrence via Freunde von Freunden.

Above: Joy Rose, founder of Edinburgh’s Bloombox Salads delivery service, forages for fresh greens and edible flowers at The Secret Herb Garden. For the full interview, see Freunde von Freunden.

Above: Joy Rose’s new salad startup offers Edinburgh’s residents organically grown greens–foraged and assembled by Joy and delivered in her wicker bike basket. “It started because I realized that in Edinburgh you simply can’t get a good salad, or I suppose what I envision as a salad, they are always just a bit uninspiring,” Rose told interviewer Sarah Mitchell. For the full story, see Freunde von Freunden.

Above: Rose, who learned about The Secret __garden through a sustainable farming course, forages for fresh greens in the 7.5-acre __garden on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

Above: “It is about keeping in tune with the seasons and connecting people with the land and where their food truly comes from–making the supply chain as short as possible and making wholesome, locally sourced organic food accessible to people and not an impossible idea,” says Rose.

Shop the Bklyn Designs Fair in Greenpoint from May 8 to 10

Join us at the Brooklyn Expo Center in Greenpoint next weekend, when we’ll be kicking off NYCxDesign week as a media sponsor of the Bklyn Designs fair celebrating the borough’s best artisans, designers, and manufacturers.

From May 8 to May 10, Bklyn Designs will showcase Brooklyn’s best furniture, lighting, textiles, jewelry–and gardening accessories. 

The show is free to the trade, for students, and for media. Tickets are $15 for the general public. Gardenista readers will get a $5 discount per ticket with coupon code GARDENISTA5. 

Here are some of our favorite Brooklyn makers who will be at the fair:

Above: Made from old growth lumber felled by Hurricane Felix, Brooklyn-based designer Aaron Poritz’s Medium Abner Toolbox is $220.

Above: Brooklyn-based Fort Standard makes Stone Candle Holders ($68 apiece) and will have products featured in a Dwell-curated pop-up store.

Above: The High Line Shop will be featuring a curated pop-up store of favorite Brooklyn designers, including Boundless Brooklyn, known for its whimsical model kits of such iconic Brooklyn skyline sights as a lifeguard hut. A Mini Water Tower Kit is $20.

Above: The three-day Bklyn Designs fair will be at the Brooklyn Expo Center at 72 Noble St. in Greenpoint from May 8 to 10. Tickets are $15; Gardenista readers will get a $5 discount with coupon code GARDENISTA5.

Gardenista on Flipboard: See Our New Magazines

Do you ever wish you could flip through Gardenista as if it were a glossy paper magazine?

We’ve pulled together some of our favorite stories into curated collections on Flipboard. If you don’t have a mobile device, Gardenista on Flipboard looks great on the web. See our Gardenista Flipboard magazines if you want to browse our archives of our favorite posts.

Above: Remember when Alexa made DIY Moroccan preserved lemons? See that project and more favorite Gardenista DIYs on Flipboard. 

Above: We’re pulling together our favorite __garden Design posts in a curated collection on Flipboard.

Above: Keep track of all our new hand-picked Gardenista 100 guide to the best tools and accessories of 2015 (plus a selection of our greatest-hits planters, pots, and fire pits from our 10 Easy Pieces roundups) on Flipboard.

Above: Read all 13 of our curated collections from Gardenista on Flipboard.

For more of our favorite Garden Tech tools, see:

• 10 Essential Apps to ID Plants and Seeds.
• Plantifier: The One App You Need?
• Citizen Scientists, Unite: Plant ID Apps to Track Climate Change.

Sneak Peek: A New Issue of Garden Design Magazine

When we got a sneak peek at the new summer issue of Garden Design, we were thrilled to see page after page of glossy photos of a grand Delaware __garden that legendary landscape architect Kiley designed for former governor Pete du Pont and his wife, Elise. Take a look:

To see the whole issue, subscribe to Garden Design. Or preview the new summer issue here.

Photography by Roger Foley.

Above: Landscape architect Dan Kiley was “an infectious character, a hero for those of us who follow and care deeply about this art form,” wrote our contributor Lindsay Taylor (a __garden designer herself) last year. For more about Kiley, see An Ode to Landscape Architect Dan Kiley.

Above: In a career that spanned several decades, Kiley “worked with the great architects Eero Saarinen, Louis Kahn, and I.M. Pei. His design vocabulary was influenced by Andre Le Notre, the 17th-century French landscape architect and gardener to King Louis XIV,” says Lindsay Taylor. 

Above: Says Garden Design editor Thad Orr, “These are really our favorite type of garden to do a story on. It was rich in design history, being a Dan Kiley garden with great lessons for readers at every turn. It’s always a dream to showcase gardens that have such a fine balance of landscape architecture and horticultural authenticity.”

Subscribe to Garden Design or preview the new summer issue here.

Gardenista Pop-Up Market: Join Us at GROW London in June

We’re heading to London to host a Gardenista pop-up market at the second annual GROW London __garden fair on Hampstead Heath from June 19 to 21.

At the pop-up-market, our favorite local artisans and craftsmen will be offering a range of handmade, sustainably sourced, and one-of-a-kind __garden and home furnishings and accessories.

Buy tickets ahead of time or use Gardenista code GROWGARDENISTA to get a 50-percent discount on at-the-door tickets (code valid at all times excluding the garden Party Charity Preview).

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the vendors whose work we’re proud to showcase at GROW London this year:

Above: Photographs from Electric Daisy Flower Farm will be at the Gardenista Market at GROW London.

Electric Daisy Flower Farm is the brainchild of designer Fiona Haser Bizony, who has curated gallery exhibitions, installations, and festivals funded by Arts Council England. After laying grass over the main thoroughfare of Bradford-on-Avon; running a flock of sheep through the town center in Cirencester; and making a life-sized chocolate Jesus, she currently farms cut flowers.

Her latest project is a “pinup” calendar featuring seasonal flowers. Prints of photographs from the calendar, including Mr. February and Mr. August (above) will be for sale at the pop-up market.

Above: Garden accessories designer Geoffrey Fisher makes hooks, trugs, slingshots, and birdhouses.

Based in High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, an English county with a long history of working with wood, Fisher produces small volume pieces that are individually commissioned–everything is made to order with the highest standard of design and production.

Fisher sources materials sustainably; timber pieces are generally offcuts from trees that have either come to the end of their life or need to be cut back. The cuttings are then stripped of their bark and sanded to reveal the beauty of the raw timber underneath.

Above: Based in Hackney and founded by designer Angela Maynard last year, Botany is an independent plant and home wares store where ethical design comes first. At the Gardenista Market, Botany will offer a curated selection of plants, foliage, and handmade pots and accessories.

Above: Irish linen tablecloths from 31 Chapel Lane; the designer’s limited edition Irish-made textiles are made exclusively with Irish linen and tweed. At the Gardenista Market, 31 Chapel Lane also will be launching a market bag in collaboration with US-based Apolis.

Above: A maker of handmade rope and knotted interiors products, Knotted Interiors by Eleanor Bolton will be offering contemporary plant pot hangers made of acrylic rope (available in a range of colors).

See more about the 80-plus exhibitors who will be at GROW London this year.

GROW London: A Contemporary Garden Fair Returns to Hampstead Heath

Pack up your plants, Chelsea Flower Show. The second annual GROW London __garden fair is coming to London’s Hampstead Heath next month. We had so much fun co-sponsoring the contemporary design fair last year that this time around we’ll also be curating a pop-up Gardenista Market, featuring __garden furnishings and accessories from our favorite artisans and makers.

The fair will run from June 19 to 21. Stop by Hampstead Heath for fresh gardening ideas, modern garden accessories, outdoor furniture, and planters for small-space gardens, plus a wide variety of new and unusual plants. For more information, see GROW London.

Here’s a sneak peek at some of our favorites among the more than 80 exhibitors at the fair:

Above: With a company name derived from the Old English term “bosky” meaning “a small forest,” Boskke makes hanging sky planters to make it possible to have fresh herbs and greenery all over the house. All you need is a little ceiling space. For more, see The Hanging Kitchen garden by Boskke.

Above: The guerrilla gardening gurus from Kabloom will be at the fair with Seedboms, compressed bundles of seed-impregnated soil ready to toss into vacant lots or forlorn dirt patches. For more on the movement, see Throw It, Grow It: London’s Guerrilla Gardeners.

Above: As our UK correspondent Kendra Wilson said recently of Rush Matters, “It’s hard work, being the last harvester of bulrush in the UK. Every summer Felicity Irons spends three months in the river wielding a rush knife, which is a three foot blade attached to a six foot pole, like a scythe. She cuts two tons of rush stems a day, which is punted back to her farm and dried against a large hedge.”

Clients include The Conran Shop and David Mellor Design, but Irons’ rush mats also can be seen covering the Tudor floors of Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire and other National Trust properties.

For more, see Medieval and Modern Rush.

Above: Favorites in the year-round garden that supplies menu ingredients for London’s The River Café, family-based Franchi Seeds from Italy is known for varieties of winter-hardy chicories, chards, and spinaches. Franchi Seeds also are available from Seeds of Italy for European gardeners and from Grow Italian for US gardeners. For more, see Sow Now for Winter Salad.

Above: With items in tow from her eponymous garden store in Hampstead village, plantswoman Judy Green will be exhibiting new products and gardening accessories for 2015. We recently spent a day with her in the garden; see At Home with Judy Green in London’s Leafiest Suburb.

Instagram Insider: An Intimate Look at the London Garden of Sam McKnight

What becomes a legend most? Celebrity hair stylist Sam McKnight’s 70,000+ followers on Instagram are content to look at closeups of his flowers (with the occasional shot of Chanel backstage). Landscape designer Jo Thompson, who collaborated with McKnight on his garden, says: “It’s lovely to have a client who appreciates the intrinsic beauty of each bloom.” 

McKnight has been at the top of his game forever; his back catalog is filled with every glamorous female you care to name, from Princess Diana to Madonna, many of whom remain firm friends. When the New York Times ran the headline “Kate Moss is more into gardening than clubbing these days,” (referencing British Vogue) they were talking about the supermodel’s conversations with Sam McKnight.

Beyond the flowers, what does McKnight’s __garden look like? It has great bones, like a photogenic face. Let’s take a tour:

Photography by Jim Powell for Gardenista.

Above: Looking back toward the house, with an island of planting around a quince tree. For somebody who likes to entertain outdoors, this is a clever way of screening the eating and cooking area from the neighbors. Most London gardens are overlooked, no matter how long they are.

Above: The late summer garden, when giant scarlet crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ takes over from peonies and hardy geraniums; seed heads of allium mix with spires of mauve agastache ‘Blackadder’. The small copper-leafed tree is Cercis cadensis.

A challenge for McKnight’s friend, landscape designer Jo Thompson, was “fitting in every plant a plantoholic loves.” Treating this as a positive really cemented their relationship. “Athough I’m known for including a lot of plants,” says Jo, “nothing compares with Sam. So, I had to see how we could fit it all in, without being dotty and bitty.”

Above: A screen of Gaura lindheimeri with Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Album’. “We’ve combined plants in such a way that it seems like a meadow,” says Jo Thompson. “Tall, semi-transparent stems create veils through to other areas.”

Above: McKnight loves his __garden so much that he replaced most of the the back of his house with glass. A wide terrace connects the house and the garden. “I can sit inside in winter and feel as though I’m in the middle of the garden,” he says. “There is only glass separating me from the flowers.”

Thompson convinced Sam to shrink the lawn to create an hourglass shape of packed flower beds. “He had the idea of being enveloped with flowers,” she says. Any in particular? “Every plant you can think of.” 

The lawn-and-flower area is effectively divided into two rooms; the third section at the back being mainly about food.

Above: Three small trees of Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’ mark the way through the garden, creating a rhythm in the riot of plants. “I did insist on some repeat groupings, of varieties or color,” says Thompson. “This ties together the planting and unifies the garden in all its different sections.”

“It’s great working with Sam,” Thompson continues. “He really pushes and challenges me; it’s become a true collaboration.” There was some discussion about how to screen the next door windows. “He had the brainwave of including five tall cypresses,” (shown Above). “I would have thought of cypress as too Mediterranean,” says Thompson, “but this works perfectly.”

Above: Two straight paths run the length of the garden on either side. Neither is clearly visible from the middle of the garden, yet they provide practical access and–yes–an excuse for extra borders. 

Above: The mood changes at the back, with a shed, barbecue and eight raised beds for growing food. “The veg beds are doing okay,” admits McKnight. “But I’m a beginner, so let’s see.”

Above: “When I moved in,” continues McKnight, “the garden was a bland rectangle and I pottered about in the borders (with about 50 extra pots) for a couple of years.” When the house renovations were finished he called in Thompson, whom he’d met through a mutual friend at the Chelsea Flower Show. It’s difficult to grasp how young this garden is: “Jo and I set to work on it last year.”

Above: From plantoholic to plantsman: McKnight’s waving combination of pale Veronicastrum and Gaura. Sam and Jo continue to work as a team on the young and evolving garden. “It is very dear to my heart,” says Thompson. “It’s a got a feeling of being loved; a happy garden.”

For more Brit style, see:

• 10 Ideas to Steal from English Cottage Gardens.
• Garden Visit: Ditchley Park, Made by Mr. and Mrs. Tree.
• Bloomsbury in Sussex: garden Visit to Charleston Farmhouse.

Top Picks from the Gardenista Market at GROW London

Our favorite UK-based floral artists, craftspeople, shop creators, and innovative publishers will be at GROW London Thursday till Sunday, conveniently concentrated in the Gardenista Market hosted by our own Christine Chang Hanway.

Here is a sampling of vendors and their brilliant wares (for more, click here and here): 

Above: Nicola Beauman’s Persephone Books is out to publish “criminally neglected” early to mid-20th century woman authors. It’s also bringing design bliss to readers everywhere: each book features gorgeous endpapers by artists who were the authors’ contemporaries. Buy them in bulk.

Above: Beggars’ Velvet, a new effort by Kate Owen and Ros Badger aiming to “playfully engage with the onerous tasks of daily life,” will be offering an array of profoundly useful items emblazoned with apt words and phrases from assorted literary giants. They’ve also created a waxed cotton working apron with deep pockets and a twine dispenser that should probably become the official Gardenista uniform.

Above: Grace & Thorn is bringing rustic English countryside style to London floral design. Founded by Nik Southern, Grace & Thorn’s bouquets feature lush contrasts in flowers and foliage. We’ll take one a day, please.

Above: Home Address offers a collection of items from European craftspeople curated by Celine Lynch. Take your pick from hand-made items ranging from Portuguese stoneware with winningly irregular edges to rush poofs woven by Catalonian donkey basket makers.

There’s still time to secure your discount tickets using the code GROWGARDENISTA. Ticket offer is valid at all times except Thursday night’s __garden Party Charity Preview. 

Garden Design: Dan Hinkley at Home on Puget Sound

For high drama in the garden, visit the well-known plant collector and author Dan Hinkley. His 6.5-acre __garden on Puget Sound features rare specimens from 65 trips to nearly two dozen countries and is featured in a story by Valerie Easton in the new issue of Garden Design magazine.

Hinkley, a gardener whose tireless quest for new and interesting plants is credited with helping to “change the face of American gardening,” once owned a quirky specialty nursery called Heronswood, which he famously sold to W. Atlee Burpee & Company only to see it closed down in 2006 (“it was losing money,” Burpee’s CEO explained).

To see the whole issue of __garden Design, subscribe here. You can preview the autumn issue here.

Photography by Claire Takacs.

Above: On the northern tip of Washington state’s Kitsap Peninsula, Hinkley and his husband, the architect Robert Jones, built a house–and a wild garden like none other. Shown here growing against the facade are rare woodland plants including Paris thibetica and a large-leafed Podophyllum, which Hinkley brought home from China.

Above: Previous owners christened the house Windcliff in honor of its location atop an exposed bluff. Growing in the front garden are red Lobelia tupa, yellow daylilies, palms, Yucca rostrata, and drifts of Stipa tenuissima.

Above: With the Seattle skyline and Mt. Ranier in the distance, native fir and Pacific madrone trees frame the view. Lilies, perennials grasses, and Phormium tenax mingle freely.

For more adventures of our favorite plant hunters, see:

• Where to Find the Next “It” Plants.
• Required Reading: The Planthunter from Sydney, Australia.
• 10 Garden Ideas to Steal from Artist Frida Kahlo.

How to find the perfect architect for you, your home and your budget

I’ve just exchanged on a house in Surrey. It has six bedrooms, a 260 ft-long __garden and is in walking distance of Haslemere station. Tick, tick, tick. Sadly, it also holds the unfortunate accolade of being the ugliest house on the road – both inside and out – and is begging for a big extension at the back. What I need is an architect, but how do I hit upon the right one to suit my house, my budget and me?

Tracey Appel ran a tender process to find her perfect match. She needed a specialist to restore St Martha’s Priory, her derelict lodge near Guildford. The Gothic-inspired Thirties property comprised two detached thatched buildings on the corner of a 14-acre plot. Designed by the local architect AC Burlingham, the structure was thought to be the gatekeeper’s quarters to a manor house that was never built.

Perched on the top of Pilgrim’s Way, a prehistoric route that runs from Hampshire to...

Dear Graham Norton: A clairvoyant told me my late husband was a liar. Should I believe him?

Dear Graham

My husband died three months ago. We had been married for 18 years: a love/hate relationship with passionate arguments but a deep love and an almost telepathic bond.

Six weeks after he died in traumatic circumstances in hospital, I went to see a medium. I hadn’t been there at the moment of his death and I wanted – I don’t know, his forgiveness, maybe.

The medium passed on statements from him about things he couldn’t possibly have known, such as me having my wedding ring in my bag and the shoes I’d worn at his funeral being too tight (they were – I’d worn them at our wedding).

The medium said there was “so much love” for me emanating from my husband. But he also said he hadn’t always been truthful. That is the understatement of the century. He has left chaos behind in both his business and his personal life.

Now I don’t know whether I want to “visit” him again: my heart leapt at...

Gardening events 2016

November 

Until 2 January 

Magic Lantern Festival: with gardens open until 10pm, visitors will be able to explore the grounds and see spectacular lanterns and lights  (01214 541860; birminghambotanicalgardens.org.uk). Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Westbourne Road, Edgbaston B15 3TR.

Until 2 January

Christmas at Kew: the Royal Botanic Gardens will once again light up in November and visitors can embark on a mile-long trail through a wintery wonderland lit with over 60,000 lights  (020 8332 5655; kew.org). Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey  TW9 3AE. 

25 November-18 December 

Enchanted Christmas at Westonbirt Arboretum, every weekend until 18 Dec; spectacular lighting display over a mile-long trail, free Christmas crafts, festive stiltwalkers, classic carols, a traditional children’s carousel, shop, Father Christmas and elves. Must book in advance (03000 680400; forestry.gov.uk/westonbirt-christmas). 5-8pm, Westonbirt, Tetbury, Gloucestershire GL8 8QS

25-26 November

Illuminated gardens: take an evening winter stroll around Powis Castle and see its illuminated gardens, terraces and courtyard  (01938 551929; nationaltrust.org.uk/powis-castle-and-garden). Powis Castle and Garden, Welshpool, Powys SY21 8RF. 

26&27 November

Christmas Fair at the Chelsea Physic Garden, a long-established and hugely popular Fair with over 100 exhibitors selling a broad range of beautiful products. Entry £6 adults, free for Friends and under 16s (020 7352 5646; chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk). 10am–5pm Sat & 10am–4pm Sun, Chelsea Physic Garden, 66 Royal Hospital Road, London SW3 4HS  

26&27 November

Meldreth Christmas Tree Festival  a display of over 40 beautifully decorated trees. Home made refreshments both days. Craft and produce stalls.  Entrance and parking free. 11am to 5pm Holy Trinity Church, Meldreth, Cambridgeshire  SG8 6NT.

26&27 November

Annual festive market, with local food, drink, crafts and produce; a great chance to kick start your Christmas shopping. Live entertainment on Sunday with the East Grinstead concert band. Free entry to the market, normal __garden admission applies. 10.30am-3pm, Sissinghurst Castle Gardens, Biddenden Rd, Cranbrook, Kent TN17 2AB

27^th November 

Leonard Broadbent Annual Lecture: ‘Wild about Perennials’ by __garden designer, writer and teacher, Noel Kingsbury. Tickets  £8, Friends of Ness Gardens & Chartered Institute of Horticulture members £6, students £4 ( (nessgardens.org.uk/whats-on).  2-4pm, Ness Botanic Gardens, University of Liverpool, Neston Road, Ness CH64 4AY.

29 November

Fleet Flower Club’s Christmas Demonstration: “A Cheshire Christmas” by Ian Lloyd. Tickets £12 (01252 625080 or on the door; fleetflowerclub.co.uk). 6.45pm for 7.45pm, The Harlington, Fleet, Hampshire GU51 4BY

29 November

South Lakeland Orchard Group (SLOG) winter talk: "The Origin of the Apple and the even stranger Origin and Spread of Grafting" by Emeritus Professor Barrie Juniper. Non-members £3 at the door incl refreshments (slorchards.co.uk). 7.30pm Old Hutton Public Hall, Cumbria LA8 0NQ

December 

1-31 December

Landscape advent calendar: head out on a winter adventure and follow the Stowe House trail to discover 24 hidden doors in the landscape as part of a giant advent calendar  (01280 817156; nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe). Stowe, Buckinghamshire MK18 5EQ. 

2 December 

Stylish Festive Planting: learn how to create your own festive container displays using seasonal plants like hyacinths, amaryllis and narcissi. Experts will be on hand to demonstrate how containers can be used to brighten up rooms and gardens.  (020 8940 5230; petershamnurseries.com). Petersham Nurseries, Church Lane, Off Petersham Road, Richmond, Surrey  TW10 7AB. 

3 December 

Christmas Decorations in Willow: get in the Christmas mood and learn how to make natural festive decorations for your house and garden. Make anything from chains and wreaths to stars and Christmas trees.   (08452 609000; rhs.org.uk/wisley). RHS garden Wisley, Woking, Surrey GU23 6QB. 

3 December

Food fair. Festive foods, plants, floral decorations, local preserves. Refreshments. Free entry (01233 758285). 9am-12 noon, Appledore Parish Church, Kent  TN26 2DB.

3-4 December

Christmas Gift and Food Fair with holly wreath making workshops at National Memorial Arboretum, 9am-4pm. Beautiful wintry landscape, with stalls of gifts and festive treats, makes this the perfect time to enjoy the arboretum. Suggested donation £1. Free entry to gift and food fair. Workshop equipment provided, incl. mince pies and mulled wine.  Tickets £27. Booking essential (thenma.org.uk). National Memorial Arboretum, Croxall Road, Alrewas DE13 7AR.

3-11 December

Christmas Tree Festival: Upminster Methodist Church will be decorated with more than 30 Christmas trees on theme of “Let’s Celebrate”. Free entry with donation. Refreshments and Saturday market (01708 222278; upminstermethodistchurch.org). 2-6pm weekdays, 10-5pm Sat, 12-5pm Sun, Upminster Methodist Church, Essex RM14 1AE 

6 December 

Harpenden Gardening Society Talk: ‘Succession Planting In The Mixed Border’ by Fergus Garrett, Head Gardener, Great Dixter. Entry £3. Members free (01582 713138; harpendengardeningsociety.org ). 8pm, Roundwood Park School, Harpenden AL5 3AE

6-7 and 12-13 December

Festive Floral Workshops: visit the 18th-century Ston Easton Park to see it decorated ready for Christmas, get involved in a floral design demonstration with their expert florists and take a hands-on workshop after a two-course lunch at the award-winning restaurant  (01761 241631; stoneaston.co.uk). Ston Easton Park, Bath, Somerset BA3 4DF. 

10-16 December 

Cheshire Christmas Tree Festival.  Visit our medieval church and enjoy the amazing display of christmas trees and beautiful decorations.  Light refreshments, books and bric-a-brac in the church hall. Free entry (01625 409026). 10.30am-5.00pm Sat, and Mon-Fri.  11am-5.00pm Sun.  St James Church, Gawsworth, Macclesfield SK11 9RJ

Feel Good Factor: Fendi launches VIP Happy Room designed by Cristina Celestino at Design Miami

Fendi, the illustrious Roman fashion house, has always trodden an intriguing line between innovation and tradition. The influence of  Karl Lagerfeld has had quite a lot to do with it: back in 1965, when he first starting working with the family firm, which specialises in leather and fur, he set about turning various conventions on their heads – not least  by reinterpreting the fur coat itself, a garment that had traditionally been dark and heavy, into something soft, swingy and brightly coloured. 

The screens outer wings are made from the Etere material developed with Fendi

More recently, creative director for accessories and menswear, Silvia Venturini Fendi, granddaughter of Fendi founders Adele and Edoardo, who joined the company in 1992,  has taken up the cause, encouraging imaginative thinking with her oft-uttered mantra of "anything is possible". So every year at Design Miami (which ran this year from November 30 until December 4) where Fendi has had a sponsorship role for over a decade, visitors have come to expect something a  little different from the booth that the Romans bring to the fair. 

Last year, it was a celebration of the company’s new HQ in the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in Rome’s EUR – a district of the  city developed during the Thirties. While  the EUR (Esposizione Universale Roma –  an exhibition that never happened) was  most controversially a project delivered by Mussolini, it was nonetheless a game-changing piece of urbanism and in Miami, a series of unique furniture pieces paid homage to the heroic design of that time. 

Detail of the Vanity Table with matching hand-held mirror

This year, Fendi is looking instead at the importance of its relationship with its customers, providing them with an exquisite "travelling VIP room", created by the Italian designer Cristina Celestino. In subtle colours, from turquoise and mint to pale grey, it’s a cocoon of velvets and marble, though innovation will be in evidence too, in the form of a new material combining resin and fur, which the company has named Etere or "ether".  

Celestino, 36, is one of the newer names in the design world. She was given a space in  the Salone Satellite in 2012 – the part of the Milan Furniture Fair that supports young talent – and her reputation has sky-rocketed since. Though she trained as an architect in Venice, she has found herself more drawn to what she calls "micro-architecture" – furniture and products at a human scale – as well as materials, from glass and satin-finished brass to textiles and leather. 

The Low Tables feature a variety of patterns made from mixed marble inlays

In 2010, Celestino moved to Milan and shortly afterwards set up her own company, Attico: its name comes from the apartment where she lived in 2009 – a top floor (attico) near St Peter’s in Rome. As Attico’s creative director, she has produced a range of lighting and furniture that includes everything from hand-blown glass candle holders to mirrors inspired by details from iconic buildings. The jewel-coloured glass perfume atomisers she designed for Seletti in 2013 are now in the permanent design collection of the Milan Triennale, and for the same company she has developed a shelving system in iron rods that makes more than a nod to Franco Albini, a 20th-century Italian architect whose designs so often look like lines drawn in space. 

"I’m influenced by so much Italian design," says Celestino. "The experimentation of Sottsass and the Memphis group and their playing with volumes; the way that Paolo Buffa worked so elegantly with wood in the Fifties…" Among her most treasured possessions are a sleek, low coffee table designed by Gio Ponti in the Thirties for FontanaArte and a 1967 Chiara lamp by Mario Bellini – an exquisite piece made from one folded, mirror-polished aluminium leaf shape. "All these things inspire me, as well as certain architects," she adds. In 2012, she spent time travelling through France and Switzerland from one Le Corbusier building to the next, and a few years before she made a pilgrimage to Yale in the US to take in work of Louis Kahn and Paul Rudolph. 

The base of Celestino’s Floor Lamp, rendered in mixed marbles and travertine

Meanwhile, her love of materials is most clearly played out in her work for BottegaNove, a ceramics and porcelain mosaics company, where she has developed the Plumage range of three-dimensional tiles, inspired by feathers, which can be hand-decorated to any pattern specifications. With this love of craftsmanship, colour and invention, it’s no surprise, really, that she eventually came to the attention of  the Fendi team. 

Celestino has called her Fendi project The Happy Room, and its aesthetics reflect her love of Gio Ponti and Fifties elegance, while a recurrent motif is the butterfly earring back scaled up to Pop proportions in satin-polished brass. She’s turned  it into everything from a table stand to a handle/ornament to be found on the backs of velvet upholstered chairs and sofas. Occasional tables have inlaid marble tops, while a lampshade is made in perforated leather. Double-sided curtains in grey and primrose yellow velvet  help to increase the sense of softness and warmth in the Miami space, while arched mirrors reflect the palette of pinks, blues and greens.  Low-slung armchairs in mustard-coloured Rubelli velvet sit on a  base of pale grey fox fur, while the new material, Etere, forms part of  a five-panel screen.   

Fendi's Happy Room by Cristina Celestino

"It’s really about using colours, forms and finishes to create atmosphere," says Celestino. "To make a place where people can simply feel calm and happy." In the general rush and mania of Miami’s art and design week, chances are they’ll be forming a queue to experience the sophisticated pleasures of The Happy Room.  

fendi.com; cristinacelestino.com