Red For the Holidays - This Christmas It's All About Crimson

A brief warning for those of you who are longing for an eccentric designer Christmas: the Conran Christmas visionary color this year will be RED. The blue balls and white ornaments can be moved to the bin.

From the windows of the Conran Shop at Marylebone High Street in London, the red is literally screaming its way onto the street. It is the red used for the famous London bus, the red used for the famous London telephone-booths, the red that says London, just like Big Ben does, just like the bobby’s do.

But Sir Terence Conran, the ‘godfather’ of British design, wouldn’t be Sir Terence Conran if he would pass the tradition and not make a huge Conran mark on it - almost like a statement. Yes, of course! Not the balls are red this year. The Christmas-tree itself has this dashing colour. In fact, the Christmas-tree, according to Sir Terence Conran, is like a big red cone shaped brush with green ornaments attached to it.

The shopping audience in The Conran Shop, very trendy people in a variety of ages, are filled with exquisite all because of the Big Red Thing. These types of surprises are one of the reasons they came to the Shop in the first place. That, and the approaching Christmas season which started when the first Christmas-lights went on in Oxford Street early November.

It is a fact, that London ‘has’ Sir Terence. Ever since he opened the Soup Kitchen in 1953, he has helped tremendously to restore the Jurassic London Image with every addition to his still growing empire. Because the Jurassic people - read: tradition aficionados - are not an often seen group of people in the hottest Conran places in town. Like the Meza restaurant or Club Floridita in Soho. That particular club breathes the air of 1950’s Cuba: glitter and glamour, salsa and mirrors, white leather couches in a red universe of decoration.