Imagine you’re in a fairytale wonderland, sitting in an ornate gold chair with a dainty ditsy floral print. A bow in your hair, a swath of Lacey trimmed ruffles on your dress – you’re eating delicate pastel petit fours whilst sipping Earl grey tea from the most exquisite ornate gold trimmed tea cups. This is the sugary sweet, romantic, fantasy wonderland created at the new Melrose Ave boutique Love Shack Fancy.

A mix between Laura Ashley and Strawberry Shortcake but with a thoroughly modern look, Love Shack Fancy is the brainchild of Manhattan based editor turned designer Rebecca Hessel Cohen. Designing her own Bridesmaid dresses, so successful and fanciful that she launched her own line of uber girly styles, fast forward and now she’s opening boutiques (two in California opened even during the height of Covid-19 when many stores are closing not opening). Love Shack Fancy also just collaborated with a line at Target – a testament to the popularity of the brand and the need for us consumers to buy into a fantasy right now. What could be better when we are living in such uncertain times, than to slip on something that makes us feel utterly exquisite and delectable?

The boutique on Melrose uses the exact shade of pink for the exterior as the Beverly Hills Hotel Cafe; the perfect shade of saccharine candy pink. Encrusted with training vines of baby pink roses, pretty planters, warm gold hardware and pink candlelit lanterns reminiscent of a whimsical, romantic cottage garden.

xox

Sara Louise Petty