As Sakura season arrives, blanketing various regions around the world in pink petals, Rolls‑Royce Motor Cars is proud to present Phantom Cherry Blossom.
This magnificent one-of-one Phantom Extended commission is inspired by the fleeting beauty of the Sakura blooms and a Japanese client’s formative memories of this stunning natural spectacle.
In Japanese culture, cherry blossoms are a powerful symbol of nature’s rhythms, the arrival of spring and the beauty of impermanence.
As Sakura blooms are short-lived, lasting only around a week, they serve as a poignant reminder to cherish the present and embrace life.
This symbolism is deeply embedded in Japanese art, literature and philosophy.
Cherry blossoms are celebrated in the centuries-old tradition of ‘Hanami’, or ‘flower viewing’.
During Hanami, families and friends gather beneath the delicate pink blooms of cherry trees for picnics and celebrations, relishing the transient beauty of the season.
A client in Japan wished to capture their cherished Hanami memories, spanning both childhood and parenthood.
They wished to create their highly Bespoke Phantom as a legacy and experience to be passed down through the generations in their family, evoking the same spirit as Hanami itself.
The design for Phantom Cherry Blossom was conceived three years ago, when Rolls-Royce artisans met the commissioning client in Japan to fully understand their vision.
Now delivered to its proud custodian in Japan, this one-of-a-kind masterpiece is a true reflection of their individuality and passion.
Inside the motor car, intricate embroidery captures the sensation of sitting beneath a flowering tree during Hanami, just as the client envisioned.
A Bespoke Starlight Headliner is adorned with an embroidered cherry bough, sprinkled with delicate white blossoms.
The falling petal embroidery appears on the rear door panels and Privacy Suite partition between the front and rear passenger compartments.
The design and development of this remarkable expression of contemporary craft spanned more than six months.
The headliner required three weeks alone to embroider and exceeds 250,000 stitches.
As light plays across this expansive embroidery, it reveals the intricate detail and ingenuity required to bring it to life.
The rich thread texture of the embroidered cherry tree is achieved using an offset tatami stitch, inspired by the ancient Japanese weave technique.
The embroidered branches appear to be intertwining, growing over and under one another.
To achieve this effect, a single artisan meticulously aligned 11 individually embroidered frame sections to create a single, seamless graphic rising from the rear of the motor car and flowing forward over the rear passengers.
Finally, the headliner is embroidered with cherry blossom flowers, formed of individual satin-stitch petals designed to capture the light at different angles with a jewel-like quality.
The petals can be seen throughout the rear cabin, falling onto the doors and division of the motor car’s Privacy Suite.
In a Rolls-Royce first, the interior is completed with three-dimensional cherry petal embroidery.
These tactile, sculptural details grace the division, creating a striking contrast to the classic stitchwork of the falling cherry petals on the doors.
Creating these three-dimensional embroideries required specialists to pioneer a new technique, where the thread is layered upon itself to form a self-supporting structure.
Each petal is then shaped and sculpted into its final form by hand before being stitched into place, individually positioned to complement the interior lighting and create soft shadow effects.
Extending the Hanami theme, a falling petal motif appears on the inner lining of the Bespoke umbrellas, concealed within the motor car’s doors.
The exterior also features a subtle reference to the theme; the Crystal over Arctic White coachwork incorporates a distinctive hand-painted coachline that elegantly tapers midway along the rear passenger door and features a delicate cherry blossom motif – an elegant preview of the artistry within.
No mention of the cost of course . . .
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