London 2018: Chelsea in Bloom, Michelin Building, Bibendum

Held since 1912 by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show runs for 5 days in May and is one of the most famous flower and landscape garden shows in the world.  Despite the high cost of £105 for all day admission (£56 from 3:30;  £45 from 5:30), tickets sell out quickly and are difficult to obtain.  Wanting to spend neither the time nor so much money on this event, we did the next best thing.  During the Chelsea Flower Show, shops in Chelsea partake in a friendly competition, creating their own floral displays in a free event called “Chelsea in Bloom”.  The shop fronts are ranked as Gold, Silver, Bronze or Merit by a juried panel of floral experts, with awards being given for Best and Most Innovative Floral Arrangements, as well as a “People’s Choice” award which anyone could vote for online.  This year’s theme for Chelsea in Bloom was titled “Royal Wedding Meets Summer of Love” in honour of the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, plus the 60’s Flower Power Cultural Revolution.  The competition spanned the intersecting streets adjacent to Sloane Street from Knightsbridge down to King’s Road.  Self-guided walking maps were available at the main headquarters at Sloane Square, where the large topiary and floral piece spelling out the word L-O-V-E could be found.  You could also take a complimentary bicycle-propelled rickshaw ride to check out the competition, although we only saw one rickshaw so I’m guessing the wait-time for this would be long.

We chose to take the self-guided walking tour so that we could check out the participating storefronts up close and at our own pace.  The floral arrangements ranged widely in design and creativity.  Many stores including Nars, Collective+ and Club Monaco created massive floral wreaths to surround their entrances.  Other stores such as L.K.Bennett incorporated simple bouquets of flowers in midst of the products that they were promoting in their shop windows.  One such store used ball-shaped arrangements of flowers as the heads of their mannequins.  Other businesses went all out with elaborate, artistic botanical designs.  Several competitors including Artisan Du Chocolate, Moyses Stevens and DuBarry, all chose to depict their versions of camper vans or “love-mobiles” used to travel to Woodstock during the Summer of Love.

My favourite design won second prize in the People’s Choice contest.  Kiehl’s Since 1851, a vendor of natural skin care, beauty and cosmetic products, has a trademark skeleton in every store which is named “Mr. Bones”, in reference to the company’s historic associations with the medical and pharmaceutical industries.  So naturally, the floral display in front of the Kiehl’s store in Chelsea featured two giant skeletons reaching out to hug each other while they stroll through a summer meadow.  Large red hearts are pinned to their chests to further illustrate their affection for each other (as opposed to the appearance that they are attacking each other, which is what it looks like from farther away).  I also liked the “Chelsea Girl” in front of Kiki McDonough Jewelery, dressed in a hat and 60’s style jumpsuit.  Both of these designs show whimsy and imagination that transcends typical floral creations.  The major juried award winners included Monica Vinader Jewelry which won Best Floral Display for a “world of kaleidoscopic psychedelic surrealism featuring bright Chrysanthemums in contrasting colours and fractal patterns”.  Harry’s Dolce Vita Restaurant went all out with its Italian themed gondola surrounded by floral candles and a heart, winning it the People’s Choice award.  The classic red London double-decker bus in front of Hackett clothing store was awarded a Gold rating.

Other displays that were awarded the Gold rating included multi-coloured heart from Salon Sloane, a floral guitar, the word LOVE and an elegant floral gown on display at Cloud Boutique and the wreath of flowers and the shapes of flowers and hearts surrounded the front window of the clothing store named Poetry.  There were other displays of note that did not seem to officially be part of the competition, but were still fun and created in the spirit of the event.  There was a giant circular wreath topped by a plastic “diamond” to form the shape of an engagement ring, and a “grass-covered” car and gnome, which was used as advertisement for a company named EasiGrass.  The couch of one furniture store was decorated with a mannequin decked in a long flowing gown made of plants and flowers.  So despite not attending the Chelsea Flower Show, I did get to see many beautiful floral displays with my husband Rich patiently accompanying me, thus balancing out his debt to me for the hours I spent looking at aircraft, tanks, and wrist watches.

North-east of Chelsea, nestled under the east end of Hyde Park and next to Buckingham Palace, Belgravia is a wealthy neighbourhood known for elegant Georgian-style townhouses with garden squares, numerous foreign embassies and posh hotels.  Trying to hone in on the Chelsea In Bloom event, Belgravia In Bloom was more of a marketing ploy with hardly any floral displays to view, and none that even came close in comparison.  Walking between Chelsea and Belgravia, we saw some interesting sights, such as the Consept shop that sold “Fashion” mugs and plates with the images of twelve famous fashion designers including Victoria Beckham, Anna Wintour, Tom Ford and Karl Lagerfeld.  We laughed at some examples of clever graffiti works.  The puny phrase “Bill Posters is Innocent” is spray-painted in response to a warning not to post or paste bills ("Bill posters will be prosecuted"), while the rendering of a little bellboy is painted with an out-stretched arm reaching up to ring the real physical bell of an art gallery.  We admired the beautiful Art Deco sculpture of two winged figures that sits on top of the National Audit Office.

Also found in Chelsea and open in 1911, the Michelin House was built as the first permanent U.K. headquarters for the Michelin Tyre Company Ltd, which was founded in France in 1889.  The space contained a reception area, a fitting bay for installing tires, a basement storage of over 30,000 tires that were brought up by elevator and an office where the famous Michelin maps were distributed.  The ornate building has elements of Art Nouveau with its decorative metal work and tire-shaped ceramic tiles both surrounded by floral and plant motifs, colourful bricks and ceramic tiles painted with famous race cars like the 1908 Lautenschlager sur Mercedes or Sizaire-Naudin that used Michelin tires. There were also Art Deco influences with strong advertising images including the company logo depicted in Art Deco fonts, and most prominently, Michelin’s trademark symbol, the “Bibendum” or Michelin Tire Man depicted in large stained glass windows (now replicas as the originals were lost in WWII).  The domed shaped cupolas atop stone pillars flanking the front of the building resemble the belly of the Bibendum, which was modeled after a stack of tires.  The building was purchased and lovingly renovated in 1985 by designer, restaurateur and retailer Sir Terence Conran, who opened the Conrad furniture shop, as well as an Oyster Bar and a high end restaurant named after the Bibendum.

Since we had not allocated that much time for lunch, we decided to go to the more casual Bibendum Oyster Bar, which is a bright, airy and elegant French seafood bistro on the ground floor of the Michelin Building.  The walls are lined with Art Deco styled ceramic tiled mosaics with more images of vintage race cars traversing the countryside, matching the ones found on the front façade of the building.  A cutout of the Michelin Tire Man points the way to a cocktail bar area that is open all day, while the oyster bar is only open during lunch and dinner hours, and is known for oysters, seafood and champagne.  Sitting in this lovely space, we shared a bowl of fish soup, a crab salad, and "Crevettes Rose", which turned out to be a bowl of little, pink steamed prawns with the shells and heads still attached.

Had we more time, we would have loved to dine at the Bibendum Restaurant on the first floor, which features refined French cooking of meats and seafood with a modern twist by celebrated French chef Claude Bosi.  I also wanted to catch a glimpse of the dining room with high ceilings and large stained glass windows of the Bibendum.  But when I went upstairs to use the toilets, I was too shy to walk through the closed doors of the restaurant, and settled for admiring the décor in the hallway.  This included a series of posters depicting vintage images of the whimsical mascot, first designed by French cartoonist Marius Rossilon (known as O'Galop).  The Bibendum is one of the world’s oldest trademarks, developed in 1894 in the Universal and Colonial Exposition in Lyon, France.  My brazen husband Rich had no such reservations and bluffed his way into the restaurant with some concocted story about wanting to check it out for a possible dinner party in the future.  I was delighted with the photos that he was able to capture for me, but annoyed that he did not take me in with him!

Even Rich could not find a way to tour the high-end rental office spaces in the back of the Michelin House, which are managed by and rented from the company London Executive Offices or LEO.  However I did find a video on YouTube which gave us a flavour of what the luxury offices in the Michelin House had to offer.  There are 47 serviced office suites, an atrium with a spiral staircase, an executive lounge, ornate meeting rooms and a gorgeous rooftop terrace, all decorated in the Art Deco style and featuring the theme of the whimsical Bibendum, as his image is featured in many art pieces throughout the offices.

The Conran Furniture and Décor Shop is one of the leading lifestyle retailers in the world, offering an eclectic collection of furniture, lighting, kitchen and dining ware, textiles, fashion and beauty items, gifts and accessories from some of the world’s leading designers and emerging talents.  It features both vintage classics and bold futuristic modern designs.  There is access to the Conran Shop at the back of the Bibendum Oyster Bar.  Just inside Conrad Shop’s street-front entrance sits a beautiful light blue Citroen 2CV stuffed with flowers, turning it into a flower bed.  Although this was not an official entry in the Chelsea In Bloom competition, it was definitely in keeping with the spirit of the event.