BOND STREET LAUNCHES HERITAGE-INSPIRED ILLUMINATION SCHEME FOR 2014 FESTIVE SEASON

This week London’s Bond Street takes centre stage to host a spectacular illumination scheme that celebrates the colourful history of the world’s most illustrious luxury destination.    

To celebrate the launch of the 2014 illuminations, at 5.25pm Bond Street will revert to its former 18^th Century glory and host the re-enactment of  the immortalised ‘Bond Street Loungers’. For the first time in 300 years 6 dapper young men will surprise Bond Street shoppers with a 2014 performance of the Bond Street roll.

To provide a source of inspiration for the 2014 new festive illuminations, the New West End Company’s Bond Street Development Group delved deep into the archives to explore the heritage of the street [established as a retail Street in 1686]. In the late 1700s Bond Street was the favourite haunt of ‘The Bond Street Loungers’; dapper men who promenaded the street and became the early fashionistas or ‘peacocks’ of their day. They were depicted in literature and art and immortalised in a cartoon by James Gillray (1796). Beau Brummell and “Poodle” Byng were the most notorious.

The £1 million Bond Street festive illumination scheme has been dedicated to the gentleman of the era, with white glorious Peacocks the focus theme of the lighting scheme which will be enjoyed by visitors from over 100 countries over the Christmas weeks.