fjura

Dreaming about warmer climates this week has got me scouring the web in search for a T-shirt worthy of my bouquet guns- pow, pow. Here are my top four contenders in budget order- cheapest first obviously, being from Yorkshire.

Photos by Beasleys Casual Clothing

These hand screen printed T-shirts are from a shop in my home town, Hull. Beasley’s always have an amazing range of T-shirts designed by local artists and designers, this one particularly caught my eye as it is a cross section of a flower from a 1960’s biology book. Beasley’s has become, over the years, synonymous with Hull’s indie scene, there isn’t a true hipster without one. Especially, down at Hull’s venues such as Fruit and Adelphi Club- where Pulp and Oasis have been on stage. It is a steal at £14, you can check more of their products out on their instagram page. In fact, my bias towards the place implores that you do!

Photos by Good Day Club

Similar to Beasley’s, Good Day Club, based in Brighton, are a creative platform that screen print a range of illustrative clothing. The combination of hands holding entwined roses in this design, along with the simplicity of the line work creates a striking image that is worthy of a florist uniform. Once again, the minimalism in the print so far are not only appealing to the florist side of me, but the illustrator too. This design, coming in at £25 is always worth checking out.

Photos by Fjura

In my previous post I mentioned Fjura and no surprise they’ve made it in to this one too! I discovered Fjura (Simone Gooch) only a few months and I’m totally smitten with her floral designs. Fjura have brought out a few different T-shirt designs and I’m in love with this one. It’s a printed image of one of Fjura’s designs on 100% organic cotton material. It would just be amazing to walk around wearing a T-shirt you could look down at to inspire you throughout your day. Fjura have a couple of T-shirt designs at £40 each on a big cartel webshop, but you can see some of their varied floral designs once again at the link above.

Photos by Slime Co.

My final find is this very dark humoured hoody by Slime Co. Slime Co is a creative clothing company based in New York run by designer Simon Abranowicz and Drew Shoup. I thoroughly enjoy this quirky illustration of life growing out of a cigarette packet, exclaiming ‘indecision kills’, very clever. With it being a hoody it would probably be more appropriate at the florist in Sheffield at the moment, as we are ankle deep in snow! This piece is about £40 and you can find it amongst some other pretty cool designs on their website above.

Photographed by Noa Griffel

This week I have become slightly obsessed with the installation for ‘New York Fashion Week’ that was designed by the landscape artist Miranda Brooks. According to the Tory Burch blog, 14,000 carnations were planted across 8000 square feet of mossed surface. The space and abundance of carnations is well executed and gives a satisfying, new perception of an otherwise bland flower. One that has arguably fallen out of favour with some florists over the years.

Seeing this installation has set me off on a mission to try and find other designs that include this well loved, but often disliked 80’s throw back flower, the carnation.

I was not disappointed when this beautiful design by Simone Gooch, owner of Fjura, popped up on my Instagram feed.

Photographed by Fjura

The impact of just one colour and one type of flower is fantastic; it makes a simple serene and billowed arrangement. In addition, the design makes the carnations appear as if they were climbing on top of each other, fighting for space, contrasting against the white and grey tones creating a soft peaceful and calming effect. The single carnation to the bottom right of the picture nicely breaks up the dense mass at the bottom of the piece.

After seeing the Fjura design I was itching to try and recreate a carnation arrangement myself. So this morning, with the arrival of a wrap of carnations from the market my day had finally come! Personally the design had to encapsulate the NY Fashion Week installment and the simplicity of the aforementioned Fjura arrangement.

Here is my final take on the carnations with some shells thrown in for good measure, I mean who doesn’t love the beach, right?!

Photographed by Vicky Vert

For the most part, Carnation flowers don’t sit well with me. When I take orders at work, nine times out of ten the customer will state ‘no carnations’, and I have to reassure them that ‘it’s not something we would usually have in’. I am still haunted by an all carnations bouquet I had to put together once for an order (70 carnations for every year), I do think they are making a come back in design.

A Yorkshire grown florist.