As Paris Couture week is underway I can’t help but notice the repetition of floral. Floral is a pattern that can take on different feelings yet always remains beautifully feminine. Designers often get inspiration from nature, they always have and they always will. Flowers have been beaded, sewn, imprinted, and worked into dresses since fashion became popular. Floral has a timeless essence of British royalty, French elegance, and Chinese detail work. I fall in love again and again with floral design; the way it envelopes the senses the way flowers themselves do. I smell them, attempt to follow their folds, and see the delicate nature they possess. The color is always tantalizing. It can be muted or vibrant, soft or bold.
Flowers or the conception of flowers are translated into a garment in many ways. Floral tones, fabric, and color make a look feminine. Couture week in Paris is the essence of femininity. The looks are not always floral but they always touch on the elegance that I have admired throughout history. Why is floral an ever present fascination throughout time? It is always redone and reinvented yet can always be put together into one catalogue of style. The playful beauty of floral has been reinvented and redone season to season, century to century.
Credits:
2. VOGUE ITALIA
4. Luigi & Iango, Vogue Germany, April 2014
6. Christian Dior Haute Couture, Vogue Russia, June 2011
7. Karlie Kloss by Patrick DeMarchelier, Vogue February 2009
8. Abbey Lee Kershaw by Lachlan Bailey for Vogue China May 2012
9. Vogue Portugal, Luis Monteiro
10. Grace Kelly, Vogue Weddings
11. Norman Parkinson, Audrey Hepburn for Vogue, 1955
12. Dolce & Gabbana, Vogue UK October 2012
16. Givenchy by Alexander McQueen, Fall-Winter 1997-98
19. Nadja Bender Dons Ornate Looks, Vogue Japan April 2013 by Camilla Akrans
20. The Invitation for the Spring‑Summer 2015 Haute Couture Show
21. Chanel Spring-Summer 2015 Haute Couture
22. Chanel Spring-Summer 2015 Haute Couture
24. September 2012 Vogue Italia. Image © Pierpaolo Ferrari
25. Jean Shrimpton Flowers, 1965 Vogue by Irving Penn
26. comme des garcons a/w 2012 by steven meisel, Vogue Italia Collections July 2012
27. Kim Kyung Soo, Korean Vogue
28. Telegraph
30. Edita Vilkeviciute by Sølve Sundsbø, Vogue Japan November 2011
31. Vogue
32. Oscar de la Renta Spring 2014, Vogue
34. Georgia May Jagger by Venetia Scott, Vogue UK October
35. Tim Walker
36. British Vogue Archive, Tim Walker
37. Vogue Couture
Cecilia Roses 