Our Paris flower school adventure with Catherine Muller gave us new ideas for bouquets, some traditional and some quite contemporary. Here are the pieces we created in France and I am eager to try some American interpretations here at home.
“Brassee’ fluide et wild”
Our first bouquet on Day 1 was a bride’s bouquet that was “fluide et wild” or cascading and natural.” A monochromatic color palate of all purple flowers included lisianthus, limonium, anemone, and wired muscari (adding a touch of pale blue) and wired and groups violets. Plumosa stems added grace and movement for an elegant and complex effect.
Bouquet tendances or trendy bouquet
This special little piece used tubed paphiopedilum orchids, bronze pompon mums, astrantia, dianthus (Sweet William), willow, clematis pods, ivy, and calla leaves. Calla leaves were turned upward at the base of the bouquet to give a more vertical shape. This was described as a “masculine” bouquet because it has a more vertical shape.
The unique piece
Day 3 ended with a hanging bouquet made of a crisscross pattern of olive branches which were attached by string from loops of string hanging from the ceiling. Dark purple viburnum berries, rosemary, and purple statice were woven into the grid. It was quite lovely but I will add some lighter colored stems for color contrast on my next iteration.
The Bobo Bouquet
The word “bobo” was described to us as a trend for making a very understated bouquet with extravagant, expensive flowers. Here glamorous purple anemone and clematis were combined with feathery astrantia, and panicum grasses. Some of the grasses are tied upside down from the bouquet binding point giving the piece a very casual “bobo” look.
Flat bouquet “des bois”
Our last bouquet is more “feminine” because of its rounded shape and “des bois” because of the wild branches and pods encircling the traditional bouquet. To make a bouquet less rounded the outer blooms are placed higher as the spiral is turned. The flowers in this lovey piece are Dorchester and Four Seasons roses, tulips, ranunculus, anemone, and statice. Ivy, prunus and cherry branches, and clematis seed heads encircle the delicate flowers. It was quite a stunning piece to create and I’m a little sad not to have been able to bring it home.
It’s March now and I look back on these wintery bouquets thinking of how wonderful the ideas and techniques will be with our lovely spring and summer flowers.
