Keira Knightley splashed out £500 on framed butterflies in a shopping spree on Mare Street last weekend.
The 26-year-old actress, who recently moved to Hackney, went to The Little Shop of Horrors in search of ornaments to decorate her flat with.
She was out with her boyfriend, James Righton, the keyboardist from band The Klaxons.
The Morpho Didius butterflies are popular because of their bright blue colour, according to Vadim Kosmos, the shop’s manager.
Mr Kosmos said he did not recognise the actress at first: “I thought, why does that pretty girl look so familiar?”
“She was very pleasant and seemed delighted with her purchase,” he said.
The Little Shop of Horrors is a treasure trove of curiosities, including shrunken human heads, foetuses in jars and skulls.
In March 2010 Jane Goldman, Jonathan Ross’s wife, bought a Victorian replica of a two-headed child’s skeleton from the shop for £1,500.
Golden pig snouts, snake skeletons and a variety of stuffed animals are also on sale at the shop.
The shop’s owners organise decadent parties called ‘The Last Tuesday Society’ where guests discuss the paranormal and taking part in bizarre rituals.
Academy-award-nominated Keira Knightley is currently starring alongside another Hackney resident, actor Michael Fassbender, in the film A Dangerous Method.
Knightley plays an 18-year-old Russian girl, Sabina Spielrein, a patient of psychologist Carl Jung (played by Fassbender).
