Horti-couture at the Garden Museum

It may only be February, but the Garden Museum in Lambeth is bedecked with unseasonal colour. If you haven’t visited this hidden gem within the ancient church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, its latest exhibition provides the perfect excuse. Fashion & Gardens explores the relationship between horticulture and high couture: they have influenced each other for centuries, but this is the first attempt to articulate their links.
On arrival at the museum, you will be stopped in your tracks by a most beautiful floral installation by Rebecca Louise Law. The floral artist has suspended 3,800 blooms from wires running across the ceiling of the nave. The result is magical and intriguing, perhaps because it's so counter-intuitive to see flowers turned on their head. The exhibit will last as long as it lasts: a good metaphor for the fact that gardens - like fashion - are always changing. 
There is something very charming about small exhibitions and this one is certainly that. Rather than an exhaustive survey, curators Nicola Shulman and Russell Clark have been cleverly selective. Among the highlights is a Philip Treacy hat from his orchid range (apparently a Dutch orchid grower has named a new hybrid, complete with Treacy's freckles, after the designer). You can see Alexander McQueen's lilac organza silk evening gown, Valentino's decoratively scrolled opera coat and a purple metallic trench coat from Burberry. 
‘This exhibition is very rich for the Garden Museum,’ says co-curator Russell Clark. ‘We have done a brand new piece of research. We trace the history of English fashion back to the picturesque landscapes of the 1700s through to Burberry and the outdoor clothing of today. 
‘We have looked at the confluences between fashion and garden design, where they influence each other and where they divert. We talk about floral design at a particular point in history when fashion designers were copying textbooks so that their textiles were horitculturally accurate. That’s a curiously English thing: only with the English could you recognise the flowers from the clothes.’
The influence of gardens on fashion is obvious, but it also works the other way, we learn. For example, knot gardens, the first of which was created for Louis XIV's garden at Versailles, were inspired by the raised embroidery along the borders of clothes.
The exhibition looks at the trends in outdoor clothing, and specifically those worn for gardening. A prize exhibit arrives in April in Prince Charles's much-loved, weatherworn gardening coat. History doesn't relate why we have to wait till then. Presumably because the Prince of Wales is too busy wearing it.
The museum's cafe is a great find, too. Savour Law's installation as well as the fine vegetarian food. Forget carrot cake. Here it's courgette and ginger cake with lime icing. 
As you exit the museum, you feel as if you are emerging from another world, but your passage is eased by the sight of crocuses and snowdrops on the lawn ahead. All in all, this is a must experience. 
If you're driving, you might even be lucky and get one of the metered parking spaces just opposite on Lambeth High Street. To learn more about Nicola Shulman's ideas, themes and inspiration for the show, go to her talk on 6th March, 18.30-20.00.