As Sakura season arrives, blanketing regions around the world in pink petals, Rolls Royce Motor Cars is proud to present Phantom Cherry Blossom.
The one-off 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.
The vehicle’s design was conceived three years ago, when Rolls-Royce artisans met the commissioning client in Japan to fully understand their vision.
Inside the car, intricate embroidery captures the sensation of sitting beneath a flowering tree during Hanami. A Bespoke Starlight Headliner is adorned with an embroidered cherry bough, sprinkled with delicate white blossoms, while falling petal embroidery appears on the rear door panels and privacy suite partition. The design and development of this remarkable expression of contemporary craft spanned more than six months. The headliner alone required three weeks to embroider and exceeds 250,000 stitches. In a Rolls-Royce first, the interior is completed with three-dimensional cherry petal embroidery.
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 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.