A Fashionable Bloom

Those going to San Francisco did it and fields across England offer daisy-charms for necklaces and chains. Wearing flowers, in your hair or on a lapel make great accessories. Flowers in many ways are like fruit – decorative, bursting with colour, fragrant and good for you. They are, perhaps, Mother Nature’s prettiest ornament, creating a vibrant, fun and chic tone to an outfit. Seasonal flowers can be trends that come and go; styles to make signature, like perfume.

For the spring, pick from a fruity selection: apple blossom, cherry blossom and honeysuckle all bloom into fashion. Daffodils have a sunny disposition and lilacs are also a lovely symbol of new life; Starlets and ladies from the 1940s often wore a lilac on the lapels of their pelt, either encased in a brooch or as a fresh corsage. The post-modern twist to a little ‘lilac on the fur’ is most notably shown by Sex and the City’s trendsetter Carrie Bradshaw. Her extravagant fashion sense included an over-sized corsage that bounced along the city slicker streets of New York, becoming that staple part of the Fashionista’s wardrobe, like a New York debutante’s string of pearls...

Summer brings a new ‘range’ also all very sweet-smelling. The classic rose, freesia, fuchsia, gardenias, sweet peas and the potent jasmine are all in the throes of exotic full-bloom. Slipping one behind your ear or planting one in the chic-backcombed chignon creates connotations of desirable Senortias hanging in the porches of Mexico. Or you could look like Carmen Miranda, a little lady with a larger-than life image bursting with va-va-voom. For the more demure, turn to the late, great and beautiful Billie Holiday, who wore the summer gardenia in her hair, all-year-round, making it her signature image on and off stage.

Finding all these flowers is easier said than done. Often, the most accessible flower shops are those by the station selling depressed looking carnations and tulips. These do not a glamour puss make. Try Interflora for ease and simple browsing, and flower delivery. Their flowers come in bunches, but the perk here is that you can leave the gardenias in a pretty vase and pluck a bloom as you leave for your party. Alternatively, Wild at Heart sells rare and single stems, that aren’t cheap, but the selections are varied.