Sean A Pritchard: The flower king comes to town with immersive Marylebone Village pop-up

As one of Instagram’s most in-demand garden designers — 171,000 followers and counting thank you very much — access to the world of Sean A Pritchard is most easily achieved for the majority of Londoners via pictures of his deceptively nonchalant floral arrangements or in the pages of one of his two books.

Based in Somerset, his charmingly wonky cottage provides the backdrop to many of his posts of jugs replete with homegrown dahlias, racking up likes from admirers far and wide. But now is the capital’s chance to get in on the action. Pritchard has conceived an immersive boutique devoted to a beguiling mix of design, art, fashion, beauty — and of course, elements of horticulture. It opens just in time for Christmas.

“It’s a celebration of colour, shape, pattern and texture, and we hope that people come and take part in the conversation of what that means,” explains Pritchard.

From November 11, The Atmosfloric Emporium will pop up on Great Portland Street in Marylebone Village with a striking vermillion shop front (a bespoke colour developed with interior designer Rachel Chudley). Inside is a feast for the eyes, with yellow drapery a backdrop to beautiful objects and handmade curios you never knew you needed (or even existed.)

Sean A Pritchard at the Atmosfleric Emporium

Camilla Greenwell

The neighbouring room — a stripy, whimsical affair — features a Christmas tree so abundantly decorated all you can make out is its shape. Pritchard has hand-picked every item for sale, scoring several brands not usually available through traditional retail, such as Provence-based basket specialist Atelier Vime.

There is an emphasis on craft with a line-up of gloriously analogue specialists, such as jewellery-makers and metalworkers (House of Aquila, Alison Layton, Heath Wagoner); hand-blown glassware (Gather, Vanderohe), ceramicists (Joseph Dupré) and artists (Casey Moore, Lottie Pratt). There is also Atmosfloric merch (see the branded tote bag, also in vermilion) and exclusive collaborations.

Pritchard teamed up with German-based Marolin Manufaktur, one of the last producers of transitional glass baubles, to create charming tree ornaments in the shape of daffodils and snowdrops. “What I love about shopping is the aspect of discovery,” says Pritchard.

The way the product is displayed is just as important. “It’s a real creative impulse I have. There’s a theatre to the way things are curated and put together that drives my curiosity,” he explains.

The 40-year-old grew up in Altrincham, Greater Manchester and vividly remembers coming down to the capital at Christmas time. “I’d be mesmerised by the windows of Liberty and Selfridges. I’d then go and draw them and think about how I’d do them.”

More recently it has been the Parisian retail scene that has inspired Pritchard. He namechecks the indie bookshop OFR in the Marais as “experiential”.

“When I walk in it gives me a feeling… I get an emotional response to it.”

Not forgetting Colette, the now-shuttered, legendary concept store.

“Whenever I’d go there, I’d stand outside it on the Rue Saint-Honoré and literally feel like I was at the centre of culture in the world,” he says.

“It is a place to gather different thinkers and people”

The shop’s location — close to the buzz and convenience of Oxford Circus yet a civilised distance halfway up Great Portland Street — also feeds into the Emporium. “From the heritage of the Bloomsbury Group artists nearby to the BBC and media agencies, it’s a very creative area,” says Pritchard, who worked in magazine publishing strategy before retraining as a garden designer in 2020.

He has been absorbing himself into the history of Great Portland Street, noting how, in the 1930s and 1940s it was dubbed “motor row” and largely populated by car showrooms. “They’d do these huge car parades up the street. I find the idea really inspiring that it gave birth to something so new and innovative. I’m trying to do the same thing 100 years later but with something else.”

Pritchard’s desire is for the Emporium to also be “a place for ideas, in which to gather different thinkers and people,” explains the gallery, a dedicated event space which will host talks and workshops. Jessica Light, London’s last passementerie weaver, is hosting a session on tassel-making, or you can master the art of paper flowers with Charlotte Hepworth. No doubt Pritchard’s own workshop on how to make a floral centrepiece will prove popular.

“The main hope is that it adds to people’s experience of Christmas and makes them feel inspired and happy at this time of year,” he muses. Mission accomplished, we say.

The Emporium is open from November 11 to December 24 at 122 Great Portland Street, W1; atmosfloric.com