Claridge's has built one of London's best-known Christmas traditions around a single tree in its lobby. Reimagined each year by a different name in fashion or design, and watched closely by anyone who follows the city's festive calendar. Being asked to design biscuits around that tradition, more than once, is the kind of brief that doesn't come from a pitch deck. It comes from a hotel already confident in what you can do with icing, a piping bag, and a design brief that isn't allowed to look ordinary.

The Burberry Christmas tree

The first of these collaborations sat alongside Burberry's year with the tree. A partnership that meant translating one of fashion's most recognisable house codes onto something guests could hold rather than just admire from across the lobby. Burberry's check, its muted festive palette, and the restraint that runs through the brand's own design language all needed to survive the jump from garment to biscuit without losing what makes them instantly recognisable.

The Paul Smith Christmas tree

The second tree collaboration came with Sir Paul Smith, whose own design signature runs in almost the opposite direction to Burberry's restraint. Colour, stripe work, and a sense of playfulness that's as recognisable as any logo. Designing for that brief meant leaning into pattern and colour rather than holding back, while still keeping every biscuit precise enough to sit comfortably inside a five-star hotel lobby rather than looking like a novelty item. Two very different design languages, both filtered through the same hand-iced process, is a fair summary of what these tree partnerships actually ask of us as a bakehouse.

Paddington Bear children's gifting

Alongside the tree collaborations, we were also asked to design a children's Christmas gifting project themed around Paddington Bear. A character with about as much affection built up around him in London as the hotel itself. This project sat apart from the two brand collaborations in tone: rather than a fashion house's design codes, the brief was warmth, familiarity, and something that would genuinely delight a child receiving it rather than simply photograph well. Duffle coat blue, marmalade orange, and Paddington's unmistakable hat all needed to come through clearly at biscuit scale, aimed squarely at younger guests rather than an adult gifting audience.

What these projects have in common

Taken together, these three projects are a reasonable summary of what hand-iced biscuit design can flex to cover. A global fashion house's restrained house code, an independent British designer's more playful signature, and a children's character brief built entirely around warmth rather than sophistication. None of them could have been designed from a fixed template, and each demanded a genuinely different design approach rather than a shared house style stretched across three briefs.

Working with a hotel like Claridge's on projects this visible also means working to a standard where nothing can look approximate. Guests, press, and the brands themselves are all looking closely at the same lobby installation, and a biscuit that doesn't read clearly from a few feet away has failed at the one job it had. That's the bar these collaborations were designed and iced against.

If you're planning a brand collaboration, seasonal activation, or children's gifting project along similar lines, get in touch with the specifics of your brief. The brand you're working with, the occasion, and roughly when you'll need it and we'll talk through what's realistic for a project at that level of visibility.