Sketch in Bloom: A Tribute to Jane Austen, Celebrating 250 Years of Literary Legacy
SKETCH IN BLOOM: A Floral Chapter – Celebrating 250 Years of Jane Austen
1st May, 2025 to 1st June, 2025
sketch
9 Conduit Street
London, W1S 2XG
Sketch reimagines its storied Mayfair townhouse as a living tribute to Jane Austen, blending floristry, literature and Regency-era charm in celebration of her 250th birthday.
This spring, sketch — the imaginative Mayfair destination long known for its flair for transformation — mounts an ambitious tribute to one of England’s most cherished literary figures. Marking the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, the Grade II* listed townhouse will be reimagined as a living garden inspired by the novelist’s landscapes, heroines and enduring wit.
From 1 May through 1 June, the iconic venue will unveil a series of floral installations across its labyrinth of neoclassical rooms. Drawing from Austen’s beloved novels — Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park — sketch in bloom invites visitors to walk through a world of botanical daydreams, conceived by celebrated florists Lucy Vail, Ricky Paul and Rob Van Helden.
Austen, a known admirer of nature and the English countryside, once wrote, ‘To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.’ The team at sketch appears to have taken her at her word.
Credit Mark Cocksedge
Reception & Entrance Hall – Lucy Vail Floristry
From the street, passers-by will be met with an arresting floral arch — a tapestry of clematis, foxgloves, daisies and forget-me-nots — cascading across sketch’s historic façade. Step inside, and the world of Jane Austen unfolds not through dialogue, but through fragrance and form.
In the Entrance Hall, Lucy Vail Floristry has conjured an immersive scene that nods to the Regency aesthetic without descending into pastiche. A freestanding pergola rises from a meadow of spring blooms, flanked by panels in that familiar Regency blue. Murals by artist Meg Boscowen adorn the alcoves, each painting a romantic vision of the British landscape — with subtle nods to sketch’s own iconography.
Books, or at least their pages, drift above from the domed ceiling, caught in imagined mid-air as if loosed by a passing breeze. Beneath this floating library, a Regency-style writing desk invites guests to sit for a photograph — Austen as muse, the visitor as her modern stand-in. The experience is multi-sensory: birdsong and spoken passages from Austen’s works fill the air, anchoring the atmosphere in her singular literary voice.
The Glade – Lucy Vail Floristry
In The Glade, Lucy Vail extends her vision, incorporating the venue’s perennial tree installation into a whimsical celebration of Austen’s birthday. Here, lace parasols — a Regency-era staple — dangle from the canopy, brimming with floral arrangements in delicate shades of cream, blush and lavender.
The scene evokes one of Austen’s most tranquil sentiments, drawn from Mansfield Park: ‘To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure…’ Indeed, this is a room in which verdure takes centre stage — not just as foliage, but as fantasy.
Credit Mark Cocksedge
The Lecture Room & Library – Rob Van Helden
In the more formal environs of The Lecture Room & Library, Rob Van Helden offers a more stately interpretation. A central wisteria tree — its trunk crafted from real bark and moss — stretches towards the chandeliered ceiling, its lilac tendrils trailing elegantly overhead.
The room, already lavish with its silver-threaded walls and deep purple furnishings, becomes a botanical reading room of sorts. Beneath the tree, a small vintage desk sits beside an antique chair, with Austen’s novels neatly stacked beside them. The tableau suggests a quiet moment of reflection — or perhaps the beginning of a new chapter.
Surrounding the scene, seasonal plantings of hydrangeas, irises, delphiniums and lupins offer a lush echo of Austen’s countryside, rendered in full bloom.
Credit Mark Cocksedge
The Pod Loos – Ricky Paul
Even sketch’s most whimsical spaces are not exempt from transformation. In the Pod Loos, designer Ricky Paul takes a more playful approach. Vines wind their way up the stairs, past topiary trees and into the mirrored pods themselves. The centrepiece? A moss-sculpted figure evoking one of Austen’s heroines — poised, composed and just slightly fantastical.
Overhead, handmade wisteria fashioned from preserved rose petals adds a delicate texture, while clusters of delphiniums in varying pinks and purples fill the space with colour. Books — real and reimagined — are tucked among the flowers, subtly reminding guests of the author at the heart of it all.
A Literary Tea and Collectible Editions
As part of the installation, sketch will offer a special Jane Austen Afternoon Tea, served in newly designed silver teaware. Priced at £115 per guest, the experience promises a selection of floral and Regency-inspired delicacies — a tea worthy of a heroine.
Additionally, sketch has collaborated with Penguin Books to release a limited run of Pride and Prejudice and Emma, both bound as special Vintage Collector’s Classics. Only 200 copies of each title will be available, adding a tactile keepsake to the month-long celebration.
In turning its rooms into a reverie of flora and fiction, sketch has accomplished something rare: a tribute that feels both sweeping and intimate, timely and timeless. Jane Austen, who once observed that ‘there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort’, might well have approved — though even she would surely have lingered a while in this enchanted English garden.
SKETCH IN BLOOM: A Floral Chapter – Celebrating 250 Years of Jane Austen opens on the 1st of May, 2025 until the 1st of June, 2025 at sketch
©2025 sketch
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