Secret Squirrel designers Bri Cheeseman  and Andrew Prince have, for several seasons now, been living up to their stealthy name. With their knack for separates that are quiet yet covetable, the label has won itself slews of famous fans, and hangs copiously in the wardrobes of the well dressed, without fanfare. 

This is because Secret Squirrel are experts in understatement, working their magic through simple, silken blouses, just-so A line skirts, and dapper cropped trousers, in a way that glides so easily into an established wardrobe, the pieces feel like they were never not there.

For Spring/Summer 2011/12, however, with their Botanica collection they've raised their voice a decibel, and their garden party conversation is well worth eavesdropping on.

For the first time they've collaborated with jeweller, graphic designer and very talented creative person Elke Kramer on two prints. One is based on found flowers, pressed for years between the pages of old books, and looks as if a garden of flattened flora has blown across a canvas. In russet, an optimistic citrus and shade-on-shade moody blues, the print gives very different impressions. The second, somewhere between abstract floral and geological kaleidoscope, reads as magnificent globules of colour across white, with a near-tactile interplay between marbled and cell-slide textures. 

The clothes are clean, cut from silks and cottons with Secret Squirrel's usual subtlety. They explore the idea of those distinctly English ladies who potter around their cottage gardens, making particular reference to Gertrude Jekyll and Edna Walling - women known for their landscaping ability. There's a soft sense of formalism to this idea, long swinging skirts both hark back, and speak to the undulating petals of the flowers that bloomed both then and now, whilst smart tailored blazers, trenches and collared blouses (made soft in silk), could be comfortably warn to a civilised tea.

Those blazers, cropped trousers and cheek skimming shorts - cleaned up by cute cuffs - along with block blouses, are all offered in a palette of coral pink, peach fuzz, deep ruby, soft dove and white that call considerably to be colour blocked. A flowing silk dress, flared out at the top like folded wings, that cuts away at the waist and falls into a generous skirt finishing at the narrow point of the calf, also feels very much of the moment. 

This is the first season Secret Squirrel will be available in the United States, and with pieces like this - a little louder maybe, but still utterly polite -  it's hard to imagine them sitting on retailer's racks for long.

Secret Squirrel.