In the hours before the Milwaukee Art Museum’s annual Floral Fashion Show, designers and florists fuss over petals and gems in a mad dash to complete elegant, extravagant looks adorned with real flowers and grasses.
They can’t finish them sooner – if the florists were to install the live material any earlier, they would die before their moment in the spotlight.
“It’s a stressful but exciting challenge,” said local fashion designer Maria Olsson. “We’re at the museum most of the day … it’s the first time we are seeing the construction come together, and you don’t know if it will all work.”
While MAM’s “Art in Bloom” has long been a springtime favorite, it’s the event’s stylish extension that’s having its day in the sun. The sold-out Floral Fashion Show on April 4 will feature two dozen models walking a runway framed by ornate bouquets through Windhover Hall.
For the show, local florists and designers come together to create pieces that go beyond the confines of traditional fashion by combining fabric with flora.
Olsson, who works as MISHKA, drew inspiration for last year’s hot pink gown from the folklore of the bleeding heart flower, a delicate pink blossom said to have sprouted from the grave of a broken-hearted man.
Once the design was finished on the page, Olsson’s team met for three-to-four months to figure out how to incorporate their chosen live materials seamlessly. “Live materials change the technique,” Olsson says. “You can’t just use a needle and thread to work the flowers into the design.” It’s delicate work – pins, wire and even tape affix the flowers without mutilating them.
The florist Olsson worked with understood her vision right away, but executing was another story. In the planning stage, Olsson had an idea for a hanging flower off the trim of the gown. In practice, the flowers she imagined weren’t quite heavy enough to hang as effortlessly as they did in her sketch.
Drew Hawley, a participating florist this year with Flowers for Dreams, explains: “We can sketch what we hope the end product will look like, but we have to feel what the [live material] wants to do, or the product will fail.”
Olsson’s teammate ultimately used gems to weigh the flowers down and complete the look. The unexpected genius of collaboration is what makes the show so fun, even if the design wasn’t in her typical wheelhouse.
For this year’s Floral Fashion Show, Olsson is returning to what she knows. Her designs usually tend to incorporate leather, corsetry and chainmail to create edgy and layered garments that tell a story. She described her upcoming design as being gothic, campy and almost haunting.
Want to flaunt your own floral fashion? You’ll have the chance at Bloom Bash, a new dance party this year on April 5.
