Posted by: Guest Editor - Sarah Holland on July 21st, 2008

Sarah Holland is part of the crack team at the Flowers & Plants Association plus she also pops by every now and again to fill us in on the latest flower fashion trends, arrangement tips and to answer any questions you may have about flowers or plants. Our ‘Bouquets of Emotion‘ helped the FPA to win a Silver Gilt Award at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show a couple of weeks ago. Here’s Sarah’s story from the front line…

Death, disaster, delight… ok, so the show wasn’t that dramatic, but perhaps the meanings of flowers can be.

We did have flooding, the threat of electrocution as water dripped onto a live mic, a stand so busy we couldn’t get to it ourselves in the morning, and a silver-gilt medal for our efforts… but what we were actually showing was the variety and crazy nature of meanings of flowers from around the world, or that a particular person assigns to them.

The Flowers & Plants Association took our customary demonstration stand at the show, which we’ve done since the show’s existence. Our aim is to educate, inspire and promote flowers to the audience who come along and watch the designer demonstrations, and throughout the years we’ve created fantastic stands to showcase our theme for that year.

We were in the ‘International Language of Flowers’ marquee, a totally new idea in a totally new location, which sat really well with our summer fashion flower trend, ‘Talking Flowers’. We produce four seasonal trends a year to show you what’s happening in the world of flower fashion. “Flower fashion?” I hear you say, “Don’t I just get what I like?” Well, this is exactly what ‘Talking Flowers’ is about – using flowers in a way that is personal to you, to create meanings of your own. That means creating fun pieces of flower jewellery and wearing them just because you feel like it, or making big heart-shaped arrangements for the one you love.

Our trends are actually consciously based on trends in interiors and the catwalk, but that doesn’t mean we have flowers tottering around in high heels – but we do have pictures of flowers inside high heels, or even in wellies, or worn as a dress. The trends are about what colours, shapes and styles are hip right now – but they never lose the emotional message of flowers, either.

One way we showcased this was to get a super-talented team of florists at Arena Flowers to come up with a range of ‘Bouquets of Emotion’ – whether it was jealousy, passion, fear or loneliness. We had quirky designs, such as a bouquet in the shape of two bespectacled eyes for our ‘Stalker’ bouquet, and a gorgeous yin and yang design of white roses and peonies for our ‘Soulmate’ bouquet. The bouquets were stunning, really popular with the visitors, and really showed how creative you can be with the emotional messages flowers can convey. The lucky staff at the Flowers & Plants Association also got ‘the pick of the bunch’ at the end of the show – my bedroom is now bursting with my favourite flowers, roses, that are still going strong after a week in a hot marquee! See some pictures of the Arena Flowers bouquets on the F&PA site here.

To recognise the brilliant work by our super talented senior florists, Andrew and Judith, Arena gave them both a bottle of our vintage Pol Roger champagne. Congratulations to them both!

We also showed the sometimes bizarre, sometimes untrue meanings of flowers on our ‘Tree of Knowledge’, which displayed colourful tags of meanings of flowers from around the world. Some visitors even added their own meanings – you can see the full list on our website.

The most cutting-edge design was demonstrated every day by florists who’ve joined up to the Association as a member. Taran Vernon showed Indian design, Rosa Ashby showed modern flower design, Linda Day showed typical Spanish design, and Tracey Griffin, Hans Haverkamp, and Sarah Horne showed European flower design.

If you want more inspiration from the summer fashion flower trend, you can see over 80 fun, fast, fashionable designs to express your own meaning of flowers at our website.

Similar posts: If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy this one about the first day of the Hampton Court Flower Show.

 

Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Guest Posts, Marketing, Operations on July 21st, 2008

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