Liberty London: The Freedom of Design Heritage

A brand I have kind of grown up with and always loved is Liberty London. Visits there as a teen felt so revitalising, the building, the patterns, the history. It felt like entering a world of design as rich and layered as London itself.

Liberty began in 1875, when Arthur Lasenby Liberty opened his first shop on Regent Street. Its influence on decorative design travelled surprisingly far – in Italy, Art Nouveau became known as ‘Stile Liberty’, such was the store’s association with the new style. That ability to absorb ideas, champion craft and still feel unmistakably itself seems to run through the brand even now.

I still have scraps of Liberty’s fabric in my home, from my Gran, Nan and Mum. Each feels of its own time, while still grounded in a common thread of history. Today though, it was the beautiful packaging for LBTY fragrance that caught my eye.

Pentagram refreshed Liberty’s identity in 2020, carefully redrawing the logotype from the original sign above the Great Marlborough Street entrance. They also created a custom display typeface, Lasenby Sans, named after founder Arthur Lasenby Liberty.

The LBTY name itself came from typographic shorthand discovered in Liberty’s archive, while each of the five fragrances takes its inspiration from an archive print. It’s a clever way of allowing the past to keep evolving rather than treating it as something untouchable.

When you have a brand with a pattern archive of around 50,000 designs, allowing them optimum space feels right. The oversized lids cap the glass bottles, making them objects to admire. The boxes are satisfyingly succinct and playful with their joyful letters.

We associate Liberty with its Tudor roots, William Morris’s Arts and Crafts and London’s swinging 60s scene. Now you can choose a fragrance to embrace your moment of Liberty.

Originally found at BPandO.