Rachel Bishop adores flowers, a family trait if ever there was one, and it was a trait nourished at an early age. Rachel grew up in the New Forest with its idyllic rays of light and colour created by the sun as it danced with the leaves and branches of an ancient woodland. Throughout her 25 years at Moorcroft, Rachel has dedicated herself to each new idea with her own, very special passion for colour, design harmony and ingenuity, but what has always won the hearts and minds of her followers in all of her design triumphs, has been her use of flowers, their shapes, their colours and even their more spiritual qualities. Many of her designs feature quintessentially British flowers such as bluebells and daffodils, but her profound love of flowers goes far beyond that. In this collection, we see a mere capsule of Rachel’s favourite flowers and design styles, some coming with subtle nods to the designers of yesteryear and who continue to inspire her today. Morris, Voysey and Mackintosh, - even Moorcroft’s founding father, William Moorcroft himself, come into the mix.
In her 25th year at Moorcroft, we continue to see remarkable designs from Rachel who graduated from Staffordshire University with a BA hons in design before joining Moorcroft as sole designer in 1993 aged just 24. On her arrival, she had become only the fourth Moorcroft designer in 100 years, yet Rachel continues to astound, enrapture and delight enthusiasts with her unique Moorcroft style and her instinctive choice of colour, in very much the same way that she has done over the past 25 years. On this, her silver design anniversary, we salute her skills of today as well as her ability to reach back into the past and unlock the secrets of yesterday.
Against all odds, fritillaries can still carpet a field where every flower sways open in the breeze not unlike a Moroccan lantern. Yes, such fields are rare, but there is a history attached to them which reaches back into the mists of time. In late spring, the old market at Covent Garden would find itself overflowing with the burgundy-pink chequered blooms of snakeshead fritillaries. Bunches picked from the water meadows adjoining the River Thames were taken to the market by local children to be sold for a ‘pretty penny or two’. Sadly, modern agricultural practices, particularly that of draining land and applying weed killers to produce crops for us all to eat, have decimated those carpets of wild fritillaries, leading to a sharp decline across the country. As a requiem for this delicate, late-spring beauty, which Rachel tellingly describes as ‘so exotic you can hardly believe it belongs in our country’.
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