Hosted by The New Craftsmen & Floris, this is a unique opportunity to visit a striking textile installation in the underground original perfume workshop at Floris. Limited to 10 people, this exclusive tour will take you down 2 stories of steep stairs to the sub-basement at Floris, fondly referred to as 'The Mine' & a rarely seen slice of London history.

The installation has been developed by textile artist Katherine May & is set to be one of the highlights of London Craft Week. The collaboration was forged when Katherine May visited the store as part of The New Craftsmen's 'Made of Mayfair' project; giving 8 craft makers a unique opportunity to explore the history, architecture and craftsmanship inherent in Mayfair. A visit to Floris, which remains a family run business to this day, and is still located in its original premises, provided a rich seam of inspiration for this textile artist who specialises in natural plant and flower based dyes for her strikingly contemporary patchwork and fabrics.

The group of makers were asked to develop ideas in response to moments of inspiration during the walk; for Katherine the hand-written ledgers containing the original perfume recipes offered intriguing parallels to her own investigations into the chromatic properties of plants and flowers for her fabric dyeing. Katherine's investigation into the archives and the practice of the perfumers at Floris will see her drawing out the relationship between colour and scent, using original perfume recipes as a basis to create a textile based installation in this atmospheric subterranean space & inform a series of flower dyed textiles and cushions to be launched during London Craft week at The New Craftsmen.