Fashion and horticulture have been intrinsically linked since fabrics were first created. For centuries, fruits, vegetables and plants have been used both to create and dye fabrics. Flax is used to make cotton and linen, wood pulp is used to make viscose, lyocell, TENCEL™ and modal, while hemp and bamboo are beloved for their regenerative properties.
In the 1950s, Christian Dior made a garden at Château de La Colle Noire which inspired his, now iconic, “New Look”. Thirty years later, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, who first arrived in Morocco in 1966, purchased Le Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh to save it from destruction at the hands of hotel developers. For Saint Laurent, Morocco became a deep well of inspiration. He would visit for two weeks twice a year—in December and June—to design his collections. Morocco is where Yves said he learned about color.
“On every street corner in Marrakech, you encounter astonishingly vivid groups of men and women, which stand out in a blend of pink, blue, green, and purple caftans. It’s astonishing to realize that these groups, which seem to be drawings or paintings and which evoke Delacroix’s sketches, are really just improvised from life,” Saint Laurent said.
It is widely known that Dries Van Noten was inspired, in fashion and life, by his garden in the Belgian countryside. His father was a celebrated gardener who insisted that Dries as a child work in the garden. “I hated it,” he says. “We were forced to work every weekend in the garden, but as a child you want to do other things than weeding and sawing wood.”
Eventually, Dries Van Noten came to love the art of horticulture, finding a grounding force in caring for the sprawling gardens of Ringenhof, his elegant home set in a 55-acre park on the outskirts of the medieval town of Lier. For nearly four decades, Dries’ horticulture and his fashion design influenced each other with each season of the fashion cycle.
The story of the Chanel Camellia was born in 1913, the day Coco Chanel pinned a white Camellia to her belt. Its power was in its balanced shape, its simplicity and its endurance — the Camellia blooms in winter. By 1998, Chanel began collaborating with master botanist Jean Thoby, who now cultivates the Camellia Alba Plena for the fashion house, selected from more than 2,000 species of Camellia.
In fact, flowers and fashion have such a symbiotic relationship that the The Museum at FIT staged a show in 2021 called “Ravishing: The Rose in Fashion” exploring how the rose has influenced the way we look, dress, feel and fantasize. This year, the couture runways of Paris were equally ablaze with floral motifs, from Schiaparelli to Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Dior.
Not to be outdone, Uma Wang’s Spring runway was painterly in nature, with monochromatic floral jacquards for the understated and jubilant signature reds for the brave of heart. From our latest Uma Wang delivery, we’ve received florals that appear to be tea-soaked, springing from taupe and chocolate fabrics that feel airy against the skin.
Péro’s pieces sing in swaths of blue and pink, like Spring’s first rosebuds against an azure sky. Linens and cottons are rendered in gauzy tops and scarves, with airy silks heralding in the first breaths of Spring. Layer these pieces under a one-of-a-kind floral denim jacket to brighten the mind and lift the spirits.
