Todich Floral Design Blog

Plants and flowers always seem to be in the root (no pun intended) of every fashion trend, as we’ve seen in the example of designer dresses inspired partly by exotic flowers. This time we’d like to direct your attention towards a remarkable collection of photographs of shoes and accessories designed exclusively from plants and flowers. We can’t wear any of these, but it would be great if we could. The collection is part of Michel Tcherevkoff’s portfolio of photos and is called “Shoe Fleur: A Footwear Fantasy”. It has been exhibited in New York in 2007, and is now available on display in Paris, June through August 2008.

The idea came about while working on on a shoot for a client, and was captivated by a prop and the way a leaf followed the contour of a shoe. He spent the next couple of hours of the evening contemplating on this and ended up playing with plant’s forms, its shapes, bending and twisting, to produce these wonderful creations.

[Via: LuxuryCulture.com]

In case you haven’t been informed earlier, the Chelsea Flower Show is happening again. It was opened yesterday, 20 May, and will go on for four days, ending on 24 May. The event is taking place at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, London SW3. It seems tickets have been sold out online, so you may have to chance it and try to get tickets at the venue. In any case, if you want a glimpse of what’s going on live, you can see that here (live web cams on the official site).

There are blogs for the Chelsea Flower Show here, but also photos and forums if you want to discuss.

Here’s just one photo of what can be seen at the show:

There is plenty of interesting content to enjoy at the show like changing climate studies and garden displays. You can find out plenty more on the official RHS Chelsea Flower Show site.

It’s orchids again…

Would you live in a house shaped as an orchid? Apparently, there is one available for just a couple of million pounds relatively close to London. The architects took the bee orchid as a model for designing the Orchid House - a very interesting approach to country living. It’s (or should be) located at Lower Mill Estate, here in the UK. Coincidentally (or not) there are a number of orchid species that can be found there, but it was the particular camouflage of the bee orchid that generated the design.

The house, to be built from laminated veneer lumbar (LVL) ribs and clad with timber shingles is to blend well with the environment, offering flexible living spaces, with the kitchen at the very center, and the surrounding space like a ‘whorl’ of leaves encircling the seed of the flower.

As far as interior flower decoration in the house, the architects didn’t say, but orchids seem like the way to go.

Flowers have been an inspiration for fashion designers since a long time ago. John Galliano’s latest work for the Christian Dior fall/winter 2008 collection shown recently show this only too well. He took the optimism of the sixties, amped by bright colours, as his inspiration. An interesting post on Trendinista points out, what’s at first a not so clear similarity between dress design and colours and the beautiful orchids. A picture is worth a thousand words, so here are a couple of shots from the post which illustrate what was said all to well:

Visit Trendinista for more pictures like these.