'A tiny part of south London is Christmas all year round'

Gisela Graham set up her firm in the early 1980s after moving to London

Gisela Graham has been creating Christmas decorations for more than 40 years, with her bells and baubles to be found on sale around the world and her customers including the likes of superstar Cher.

Yet her firm, Gisela Graham London, had humble beginnings.

"It's become a cliché now of course, but I did literally begin the business at our kitchen table," she tells the BBC.

The German-born designer moved to the capital in her 20s and having got married and had two children, she says she became "desperate to do something creative" so in the 1980s began to design decorations to sell at craft fairs

"For me, it was always going to be centred around Christmas as these were the first decorations that I had made as a child growing up in Germany," she explains.

"My mother and I crafted straw stars together and hung them on the tree year after year, and the sense of family and Christmas being indelibly entwined has remained with me ever since."

The firm's Christmas decorations are displayed in its showroom during the year

Ms Graham's business officially launched in 1983 at Harrogate Fair with the family garage acting as an emergency warehouse to store all the stock.

With orders expanding, in 1992 the firm set up its offices and showroom in a former stable block tucked away among terraced housing off Walworth Road in Elephant and Castle, south London.

While the location was partly chosen for its excellent transport links, the building, which also once served as a Victorian hansom cab yard, seemed particularly apt to Ms Graham, who is now the firm's creative director.

"Choosing a converted stable was ideal for a business initially centred around Christmas," she says.

The company's head office and showroom served as a hansom cab yard in the 1850s

Over the years the company continued to grow, manufacturing decorations which found their way into various stores.

Before moving to Walworth it had already become the main Christmas supplier to luxury London retailer Liberty's, while Gisela Graham London products were soon being sold in everything from "small one-shop businesses [to] garden centres and larger outlets".

Stores around the world, from the US to Japan, also began stocking the firm's wares.

"We even have one lovely independent store customer in Kyiv who is still ordering for Christmas every year," Ms Graham notes.

Recently the company set up its own online store for people to buy directly from it.

Cher visited the Walworth showroom in 1997 during a trip to London

To fulfil this demand, new products are designed from scratch for each Christmas, with production taking place well in advance.

"We've already made a start on Christmas 2026," says Ms Graham. "It takes a long time to join all the separate strands of design and production together."

When finished, the items are put up in specially created displays inside the company's showroom, for customers and clients to look at during the year.

It's a place which has attracted some unexpected guests in the past with singer and actor Cher dropping by in 1997 for a shopping trip.

"We had become one of the main Christmas suppliers to Liberty London about 10 years earlier and I believe Cher had first seen our Christmas designs there on a trip to England," explains the designer.

"We were over the moon when she placed an order."

While it began by creating Christmas goods, the firm has since expanded into other homeware

As someone who has spent her life coming up with new ideas for decorations, Ms Graham says when it comes to her own home her "personal preferences are a reflection of how I was raised".

"I like a lot of natural elements, greenery and good old-fashioned Scandi influences such as nutcracker ornaments and plenty of wooden decorations."

Her background also influences how the big day is celebrated, with her family at the centre of it all.

"We tend to stick to the same family traditions of a big meal on Christmas Eve, which is a throwback to being raised in Germany, with a few presents then too.

"It's marvellous really because it means that we get to do it all again the next day too."

Even so, if she's ever in need of a dose of further festivities at any other time, there's always her own place of business to fall back on.

"A tiny part of south London is Christmas all year round."