Great Britain’s leading theatre designer from the early 1930s to the mid 1950s, Oliver Messel (1904-1978) won international acclaim for his lavish, painterly and poetic designs informed by period styles. His work spans ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue. Messel’s traditional style of theatre design became unfashionable from the mid 1950s onwards, and he increasingly concentrated on painting, interior and textile design, including designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.

House of Flowers, a musical presented on Broadway, New York, in 1954, is based on a short story by Truman Capote (1924-1984). Set on a Caribbean island, rival madams of two bordellos compete for business, while a young, innocent girl experiences first love. Messel won an Antoinette Perry 'Tony' Award for his set designs in 1956. Despite all the ingredients for success, the musical failed to ignite the critics and public, and lasted only 165 performances.

Messel, inspired by the exotic Caribbean island setting, designed colourful sets with luscious vegetation. The façade of Madame Fleur’s house is covered in gigantic sunflowers, leaves and stems. Messel reused the sage green colour of the window shutters for his architectural and interior design projects in the Caribbean in the 1960s.