We have seen the floral trend popping up overseas and now we have the the Rare Blooms trend which is all about powerful pigmented florals, deep intensity with reds, oranges and purples, clashing with acid limes and tempered with soft peachy corals. Below is a selection of designs featuring rare blooms.
The Botanist
The Botanist is a collection of six, large-scale, limited edition prints by Moira Frith. There is a sense of wonder in these huge botanical studies, not surprising as they are from the imagination of a trained biologist who has spent many long hours in the field, looking as closely as you can at flora and fauna.
The plants are ambiguous in their identification―perhaps they are the findings of an exploration into a new rain forest, or rare wildflowers found high in the Atlas mountains―but whatever their species, there is something incredibly tangible, organic and exotic even about these works that clearly play with a fascination for the natural world.
Underwater world
Inspired by the ‘structure and chaos in nature’, Megan Bogonovich is compelled to explore the way living things develop and grow. Using an archive of hundreds of handmade moulds, she carefully constructs these fascinating coral-like structures from fine porcelain before applying a multitude of glazes. Each piece is unique with its own ceramic DNA―this collection is definitely a ‘fantasy garden that both soothes and excites the senses’.
Raphael Balme cushions
These large cushion covers feature a series of paintings by Raphael Balme, printed onto organic cotton/sateen. Balme’s work plays with colour and pattern―there is definitely a ‘deep intensity with vibrant reds, clashing with acid limes and tempered with peachy corals’ throughout all of her pieces.
Drawing on folk art motifs, she makes dream-like landscapes, which can be seen specifically through her ‘Study for Rug’ cushions―they’re rich in colour, imagery and symbols, asking you to look closely and see the details within a broader composition.
Beach finds
Inspired by the educational studies of the 19th century artist John Ruskin’s large scale watercolour paintings of flora and fauna, Samantha Allan has created a collection of prints, taken from her watercolour sketches of beach finds; the collection includes seaweeds, skulls, nests and feathers.
These ‘soft brown leather’ tones are paired with muted ‘acid limes’ and are ‘tempered with a soft peachy coral’. Although seaweed and nests aren’t usually described as ‘Blooms’, they definitely fit into an alternative version of the Rare Blooms trend.
Hothouse
Again, a more alternative approach to the Rare Blooms trend, this series of limited edition, signed prints play with scale, simplicity and the boldness of form, inspired by John Ruskin’s striking 5ft high paintings of flora and fauna that Samantha Allan explored in Cumbria last spring.
Plant hunter
Soft and lightweight, The Shop Floor Project’s latest scarf collection takes inspiration from, and pays homage to, the extraordinary female ‘plant hunter’ Maria Sibylla Merian. She was a renowned naturalist, entomologist and botanical illustrator.
The beautiful, large wraps and fine silk squares feature cut-out silhouettes of tiny seed pods, giant leaves, vines, flowers and insects in a colour palette inspired by the dramatic watercolours of Merian ―featuring those deep, intense reds and greens that are key to the Rare Blooms trend.
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