I am writing from Paris, I came here for fashion week, something I haven’t done in decades, and scenes from “The Devil Wears Prada” are fresher in my mind than my memories from my 20s. So much has changed in the world since that time — back then PETA was protesting the use of fur and the vibrant florals of Christian Lacroix and the subtle embroidered flowers of Kenzo filled the runways with color and seasonality. But fashion evolves and this season Schiaparelli has taken a turn not seen since Bjork dressed herself in a dead swan for the Oscars. The catwalk took a more literal turn as models paced the runways with lions’ heads and other felines covering their decolletage. Not since Marie Antoinette has there been such insouciant use of an endangered species. Perhaps a sighting of a polar bear on the runway might help the battle to save such animals from extinction (Schiaparelli made it more than clear that these animal heads were made of latex and fake fur) but isn’t there a more subtle way to deliver an environmentally friendly message.
As a gardener, I felt the designers were leaving something behind, but it turns out that Schiaparelli did take people like me into consideration in this latest collection, with some designs that made extensive use of floral elements. Meanwhile, I can still hear Miranda Priestley (the boss from Hell in “The Devil Wore Prada”) sighing at the suggestion that florals might work in the spring issue of the magazine. “Florals for spring? Groundbreaking.”
But honestly, what ever happened to celebrating flowers? If one is looking for endangered species to celebrate, why not start with something that might be a little less cumbersome for a woman to wear across her chest than the mane of a lion. I still cannot figure out how someone is supposed to sit down to dinner with a lion coming out of their bosom—or which mouth to feed for that matter. But in traveling around Paris, every flower shop showed me a way for fashion to be seasonal as fresh. Hellebores and primroses filled the stands. Small mimosas, with their delicate leaves unfurling and their flowers breaking into bud, seemed as beautiful as any fabric one could create. They were the embodiment of the details put into couture by seamstresses and craftspeople over the centuries— though perhaps these artisans themselves should be displayed on the front of a dress, as they are nearing extinction as quickly as the polar bears.
I think the desire to dress women in animal imagery is meant to show women as sexual and strong, but it’s wrong to think this same statement could not be made using floral imagery. Flowers are not the weak and delicate and merely decorative; they are the essence of the plant kingdom—sexual, resilient, and containing everything a plant needs to procreate. Flowers are a celebration not only of womanhood, but of the mixing of male and female. Perfect flowers contain male and female parts and are self-reliant, right in keeping with the call for gender fluidity in fashion today. As designers work to celebrate sexuality in all its breadth, flowers have it all. Plants produce their own energy and sustenance from the sun, and if one is invited to a dinner party, flowers are always a better host gift than a lion’s head, at least in my experience.
I understand what the designers at Schiaparelli were trying to project by using animal heads, but I’m happy they also took a lesson from the florists of Paris and highlighted the glories of the vegetable and flower kingdom in all their voluptuousness and seasonality.
Now maybe we can bring home the power of vegetables in a way that will really make the members of PETA happy; let’s figure out how to use vegan leather.
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A gardener grows through observation, experimentation, and learning from the failures, triumphs, and hard work of oneself and others. In this sense, all gardeners are self-taught, while at the same time intrinsically connected to a tradition and a community that finds satisfaction through working the soil and sharing their experiences with one another. This column explores those relationships and how we learn about the world around us from plants and our fellow gardeners.
