Liberty has launched its 2020 Christmas theme: Peace, Love and Liberty. As a heartfelt expression of the strength of togetherness, their creative teams worked through the night to launch Liberty’s greatly anticipated Christmas theme early, before their beloved store doors closed for a second time as the nation entered another lockdown.
StudioXAG meticulously produced and installed all 10 windows and the atrium installation, building each display from a plethora of glitter-coated fabric including shades of deep purple, holographic gold and azure blue.
The story centres around a series of hand painted scarf designs which were created by Liberty’s Design Director during lockdown. Harking back to the iconic department store’s roots whilst reflecting the rich heritage of London’s Soho, the designs are a unique concoction of 18th century etchings and 1960’s Carnaby Street psychedelia.
It was these designs and motifs that motivated Liberty’s visual concept team, led by Visual Concept Manager Lisa Clemenger, to reconsider the existing theme for Christmas 2020. “This Christmas needed to evoke emotion, strength and happiness,” says Clemenger. “We had signed off our Christmas 2020 concept in February, but as we progressed through lockdown, the theme wasn’t right anymore – we came back to work in June and realised we had to start all over again. When we saw the hand-painted scarf creations, we immediately wanted to share the emotion of these artworks with our community, and Christmas seemed like the perfect time.”
Single flying doves, the quintessential symbol of freedom, feature throughout the windows accompanied by clouds that radiate in a palette of uplifting colours. In one scene, two hands embrace each other in a sign of solidarity, whilst in another cherubs joyfully dance amongst a stream of pink blossoms.
To celebrate these designs further, a limited collection of four scarves, featuring hopeful motifs such as cherubs and rainbows have been created; each scarf is a limited edition of 1/100, signed with love from Liberty. Alongside this, a range of Christmas products has been created using the recoloured classic prints: Shooting Star and Adelajda. These bestselling designs have been recoloured to reflect this year’s Christmas theme and adorn beauty kits and crackers alongside festive sleepwear, childrenswear, stockings and toys in Liberty Fabrics’ inimitable Tana Lawn cotton.
The grand atrium is an abundance of shimmer and sparkle, embodying the celebratory spirit of a Liberty Christmas. Handcrafted glitter-coated fabric chains are festooned between each floor, creating a show stopping multi-dimensional scene. The installation is made up of 1040 loops, totalling approximately 200 metres lengths of chain.
