Bouquet of the Week: For The Love of Flowers
As part of our recurring Bouquet of the Week series, Garden Collage continues to present a weekly inspirational bouquet that incorporates intriguing new elements into the traditional practice of flower arranging. This week, Garden Collage Head of Strategic Planning and Editor-at-Large Leyla Mattison styles a bouquet honoring her love of flowers.
I have always been in love with flowers, most specifically for their ability to showcase the many definitions of the word beautiful, acting like a metaphor in a world where the criterion of aesthetics seems to have narrowed over the years. I love their diversity, the extraordinary vastness of their color range, and how their ephemeral form reminds us to enjoy the moment and take each day for the gift that it is.
Only a handful of people or situations can compete with my ideal setting: the early and glorious sunrise light – complete with a generous, fleshy flower assortment such as a monochromatic spectacle of coral charm peonies, blossomed branches, or just the simplest seasonal bouquet from one of Paris’ many unique local flower shops. Add to this composition one of my cherished modernist ceramic vases or my friend Sacha’s wonderful Reverso vessel, and my very own miracle morning can start.
As my assignment’s deadline to style my first Bouquet of the Week for Garden Collage drew nearer, I decided to work with one of my favorite fleuriste, Thierry Feret. His shabby ethno-chic boutique located in the capital 10th Arrondissement (the newly hip, raw, and painfully trendy area) is not only the warmest, coziest and most creative of flower nests, but it is the birth place of the Flower Bomb, a concept he initiated and spread on Instagram. (This trend immediately attracted locals, creative minds, and fashion & lifestyle brands alike.) Thierry started his career as a florist a handful of years ago, and as many careers born out of passion rather than obligation or default, he took to it like a duck to water: naturally, organically, instinctively. His creations follow few norms, color palettes, trend reports, or classic rules – just like him, they express the moment, the season, and life itself.
When creating a bouquet, Thierry usually starts like I would: thinking of the vessel first and foremost, mentally sorting through his catalogue of seasonal possibilities to perfectly match the bloom’s final destination. Then as you start selecting your flowers with him, you realize very quickly that he will choose them for you, there is not much left to say or control. One is only left to watch in admiration and with a sense of excitement and anticipation how he creates your very own Flower Bomb, stem after stem, picking and assembling from his wonderful choices of blooms, the most exquisite creation.
Today, he brought together an eye-popping assortment that was nothing short of miraculous in this gloomy weather: a bouquet composed of dusty pink and parma hydrangeas, blue delphinium, soft yellow snapdragon, hot pink broom, delicate narcissus, anemone, and poppy, all arranged in a carefully-executed symphony of colors, shapes, and intensity. As he placed the flowers carefully in my beloved Cloutier vase – affectionately remembering to assemble a couple of mini-bouquets for the two matching milk pots –, I realized that the sun was out and that my visual harmony was now complete.
