Smashing Petals: Fleurs De Ville: Northwest Flower & Garden Festival: Seattle 2020

This beautiful creation is called Annabella by Seattle florist, Smashing Petals. Her description reads "Our demure ingenue Annabella is wearing a gown inspired by John Galliano for Dior. Her blush pink and white dress is beaded and ruffled with carnations, baby's breath and roses. The paparazzi have chased her into a woodland meadow of cyclamen, the shyest of flowers."  

Has Little Bo Peep Lost Her Sheep? I can imagine her gathering up her skirts to bound across the meadow. I love how this designer managed to drape and gather the floral skirts as if they were being supported with real crinolines. Is duct tape the Spanx of floral mannequins?  

The collection of floral mannequins is an installation arranged by Fleurs De Villes, who "combines the love of flowers, local design talent, and bespoke, utterly unique displays, for experiential events like none other." 

I enjoyed listening to Fleurs De Villes founders, Karen Marshall and Tina Barkley, discuss their company with SLOW Flowers creator, Debra Prinzing in her podcast, just weeks before their Seattle debut. 

Hendrick's Gin was a sponsor of the Fleurs De Villes at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show and they had a beautiful bar area and floral cocktails adorned with edible flowers available for purchase. My impression was that it was designed to looked like the mannequins, in their floral glory, were guests at Seattle's biggest garden party. Well done.

I have long talked about encouraging people to find delight at the intersection of two things that they love. As I stood at the show, I realized that my appreciation for the gowns of Fleurs De Villes at the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival is because for me, they hit a bulls eye at the intersection of flowers and Barbies. 

I love Barbies and have such happy memories of combining just the right clothing, jewelry and hair styles to make my dolls look their best. I played with joy, imagination and freedom. When I walked among the Fleur De Villes mannequins, I had flashbacks of some of my favorite gowns, high heels and sheer nightgowns - all fabulous and all made for an 11 inch doll. I love that the whimsy of Fleurs De Villes allows local floral designers the chance to give in to their joy and imagination and the freedom to create custom couture. The result makes us all swoon.

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