Selfridges ‘Good Nature’ Campaign

What is ‘Good Nature’?

I stumbled across the Selfridges Good Nature campaign by chance the other day and immediately felt their goals have a strong symbiosis with the aims of my project in connecting people to nature (less of the hospitality focus however).

The campaign is a part of Selfridges’ wider ‘project earth’ campaign which is Selfridges’ 5 year sustainability plan. Good Nature represents Selfridges move away from seasonal campaigns to demonstrates their focus upon reducing waste and encouraging their customers to embrace nature, throughout 2021. Good Nature instigates a return to nature through promoting different ways to enjoy the outdoors, one of these ways includes the garden centre exhibits I came across in the Selfridges store which hosts its range of ‘horti-coture’ fashion items and outdoor wear. The garden centre exhibits technical outdoor accessories and clothing, as well as collaborations with big brands such as North Face and Hunter.

After further research I discovered Good Nature began through a series of nature inspired images from artistic collaborators. This mood-board of images can be found on Selfridges website. The subsequent rest of the campaign includes online blog posts, guides to sustainable shopping, a podcast; as well as the physical ‘garden centre’ spaces I saw in the shop.

The podcast, named the Pleasure Series, aims to showcase ways of gaining the pleasures of nature. For instance, there is an episode on ‘the pleasure of gardening’ , ‘the pleasure of growth’ , ‘the pleasure of rituals’, ‘ the pleasure of sound’ and the list goes on. The podcast is intended to be listened to outdoors to provide a guiding force for experiencing nature by focusing upon encapsulating the healing powers and escapism that can be achieved from nature.

Good Nature ultimately showcases Selfridges’ suitability pledge, alongside the demand for an awareness and appreciation of nature by Selfridges client base; that has been heightened after the pandemic; which highlighted the importance of the outdoors in all of our lives.

My Action From The Discovery of Good Nature:

Due to resonating strongly with this campaign, I have since being trying to contact the people behind it to see if they would be interested in collaborating in any way. But, it has proven rather difficult to track down these individuals. I asked the people working in Selfridges at the time of my visit, but they weren’t sure who I should contact as they were only staff on the clothing counters. I have also rang Selfridges, but this was just a general number and they too were unsure who I should contact. So, I began a deep dive on the internet and discovered who styled the window display for the Good Nature campaign, Emily Outhwaite. I have emailed her and connected with her on LinkedIn in the hope that she will be able to point me in the direction towards the creators of Good Nature, or potentially even be able to directly help to see if any form of collaboration may be possible.

Reflection:

The seed packet given out by Selfridges as part of their Good Nature display inspired an idea. This being that possibly a similar intervention could be conducted by myself to provide seeds or a space where people could even grow their own piece of nature and progressively watch it grow. For instance, if there was the opportunity to plant your own seeds at a hospitality venue and it is as though you have left a part of you in that space and you can go back and watch it grow, develop and flourish. This could also inspire repeat customers to the spaces. This may work well in an informal cafe setting, but it would require upkeep form the venue owners to nurture the plants into growing. This is just a very preliminary idea at present, but I thought it to be an interesting train of thought.

Also in relation to the seed packets, they symbolise taking nature from the event further into the lives of the customers. This is something I have tried to include in my interventions so far with offering customers the opportunity to take herb cuttings home from my herb event, for instance. Re-connecting people to nature not only in the events themselves but further into their daily lives is something I will continue to try and achieve in later iterations of my interventions. The online sharing group I have recently developed also helps to benefit this strengthening of personal connection to nature beyond the scope of events. This is due to the group promoting not only good and bad applications of nature but also what spaces are displaying these aspects of nature, so that people can learn of more ways and places in which they can interact with nature.