Famous faces, fashion and flowers bring delight as london’s social season kicks off in colourful style

A s sunny weather finally arrived, stars joined royalty in looking blooming marvellous as they toured the Chelsea Flower Show last week. Famous names from the worlds of TV, music and radio all dressed in their summer best as they mingled among the fragrant plants and flowers.

Leading the arrivals at the official preview of the annual garden display were royal twins Lady Eliza and Lady Amelia Spencer. Newlywed Amelia wore a floaty dress from Zimmermann, while Lady Eliza went for a pink polka-dot outfit by Alessandra Rich.

At the Natural Affinity Garden for Aspens, designed to highlight the therapeutic value of nature by helping visitors engage with their senses, musician and DJ Cerys Matthews was reading from her children’s version of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood.

WINNING DESIGN

Meanwhile, Dame Joanna Lumley, looking stylish in a patterned top and tan fedora, posed inside Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg’s Horatio’s Garden – an accessible haven that can be viewed from a bed or a wheelchair and which went on to win Best in Show.

“Every time I come to Chelsea my eyes open, open, open,” an enthusiastic Dame Joanna told the BBC.

Presenter Vick Hope was another chic visitor, wearing an & Other Stories suit with boots from Grenson. The 33-year-old was there to support the Choose Love garden, which will be donated to a charity that encourages communities to grow their own food. “It is inspired by migration routes across Europe and the relationship between displacement and home,” Vick wrote on Instagram. “It is such an amazing project to be a part of!”

DRESSED TO IMPRESS

Ex-Pussycat Doll Ashley Roberts looked stylish in a Jean Paul Gaultier dress at a Vanity Fair and The Newt in Somerset party, while, touring the gardens, Simon Cowell’s fiancée Lauren Silverman caught up with his fellow former The X Factor judge Louis Walsh.

Former The Great British Bake Off judge Dame Mary Berry kept it simple in a blue dress and presenter Charlotte Hawkins opted for a pop of colour with her sweet cherry-print outfit, both later chatting with The One Show’s Alex Jones.

Baroness Benjamin was celebrating after the display she helped design with Birmingham City Council was awarded a prestigious gold medal. She has been attending the show for 35 years. “My mother loved it,” she said. “She planned what she was going t