Considered pieces for a quieter kind of dressing.
Amelia Kearsley opened Velvet Sunflower in March 2019 after eight years as a buyer for a department chain that, by her last year there, was sourcing almost entirely from two large wholesalers. The range had narrowed. The fabrics had thinned. She kept finding things she wanted to stock and being told the margin wasn't there. The boutique started as a corrective to that: a small room with a good rail, stocked with pieces she'd actually wear herself. The first season was twelve labels. Seven of them are still in the shop.
Amelia Kearsley spent eight years as a buyer for a mid-size department chain before leaving in autumn 2018 to open Velvet Sunflower. Before buying, she trained in textile design at Central Saint Martins and spent two years sourcing deadstock fabric for a small London atelier. The decision to open her own boutique came after a sourcing trip to Portugal, where she found a linen mill producing cloth that no British retailer was stocking. She is drawn to natural fibres, muted palettes, and garments that hold their shape after a hundred washes. Outside the shop, she grows dahlias and reads more cookbooks than she cooks from.