Allure Explores How Flowers Became a Powerful Symbol in Times of Resistance
Earlier this summer, Allure Executive Editor Danielle Pergament penned a short article about how flowers became a powerful symbol in times of resistance. “Flowers are never just flowers,” Pergament writes. “We use them to offer friendship, to send condolences, to get laid. Flowers have killed world leaders and stopped wars. They see us through baptisms, weddings, and funerals. Flowers have a unique ability to be all things to all people. They say as much or as little as we choose.”
As Editor-in-Chief Molly Beauchemin previously noted in her short piece on the symbolic import of flowers at the September 11 Memorial in New York City, “The fact that people still leave flowers at the sight of a tragedy speaks to our very human capacity for empathy: despite our unfathomable loss, hope prevails.” Flowers, as it turns out, are vehicles for expressing both grief and strength. They are symbols of hope as much as they are of perseverance.
Fashion, of course, has always been intimately coupled with this kind of cultural symbolism. As Pergament later notes: “Flowers will always come into fashion when political indifference falls out of it. We look to these bursts of color and joy when the world turns dark. And the darker the turn, the more significance our flowers assume.” She observes. “They lift us up when our leaders fail to.”
Read Allure‘s full article here, and check out our own gallery of inspiring flowers, below.
