2015 Pantone Color of the Year — Marsala

By Kit Wertz

2015 Pan­tone Col­or of the Year: Marsala

Annu­al­ly the Pan­tone Col­or Insti­tute: declares a par­tic­u­lar hue to be the “Col­or of the Year”. Twice a year the com­pa­ny hosts rep­re­sen­ta­tives from var­i­ous nations’ col­or stan­dards groups to attend a secret two-day meet­ing in a Euro­pean cap­i­tal city. This col­lec­tive group choos­es a col­or that rep­re­sents the cur­rent cul­tur­al zeit­geist.  In 2011, for exam­ple, col­or of the year, Hon­ey­suck­le, rep­re­sent­ed a way for our spir­its to be lift­ed in times of stress (hint: reces­sion).  The results of the meet­ing are pub­lished in Pan­tone View, which fash­ion design­ers, florists, and tex­tile design­ers use to help guide their designs and future products.

From Leatrice Eise­man Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Pan­tone Col­or Insti­tute:^®

“Inter­est­ing on its own and a won­der­ful con­trast for oth­er hues, PANTONE 18–1438 Marsala serves as the foun­da­tion to the Spring/Summer 2015 palette. Sen­su­al and bold, deli­cious Marsala is a dar­ing­ly invit­ing tone that nur­tures; exud­ing con­fi­dence and sta­bil­i­ty while feed­ing the body, mind and soul. Much like the for­ti­fied wine that gives Marsala its name, this robust shade incor­po­rates the warmth and rich­ness of a taste­ful­ly ful­fill­ing meal, while its ground­ing red-brown roots point to a sophis­ti­cat­ed, nat­ur­al earth­i­ness.”  Pan­tone^® tells us that this col­or pairs well with PANTONE 14–4102 Glac­i­er Gray and PANTONE 14–4313 Aquamarine.

Marsala Flowers

Flower Duet’s sug­ges­tion for Marsala col­ored flow­ers for 2015. Flow­ers are clock­wise from top left: Bur­gundy Baby Arti­choke, Brown Lisianthus, Blaz­ing Fury Cym­bid­i­um Orchid, Black Prince Echev­e­ria, Choco­late Cos­mos, Dark Pink Astran­tia, Sumathi Maroon Van­da Orchid and Leu­ca­den­dron Teretifolia.

Floral Trends for 2015

Hair Wreaths Are Here to Stay

As we report­ed last month, flo­ral crowns and hair wreaths con­tin­ue to be on the rise as desired dec­o­ra­tion for super­mod­els in fash­ion shows, brides, brides­maids, flower girls and for par­ties. In the last few months, we’ve cre­at­ed flo­ral crowns for four pri­vate par­ties and three wed­dings. We see this trend con­tin­u­ing through 2015 and it’s not just for wed­dings and runways!

Greenery Dominates Floral Designs for 2015

Entry flo­rals we cre­at­ed for a wed­ding at a pri­vate home in Palos Verdes last month. This design fea­tured four types of green­ery includ­ing salal, rus­cus, New Zealand Pit­tospo­rum and Gera­ni­um leaves.

Bespoke design­ers around Cana­da and the Unit­ed States are embrac­ing the local flow­ers and green­ery trend. More and more designs are fea­tur­ing lots of green­ery and few­er blooms. But, the blooms are prici­er gar­den ros­es, peonies, hydrangea and dahlias. Flo­ral designs take on a less tra­di­tion­al shape with a decid­ed­ly asym­met­ri­cal feel.

If you want to see what’s being cre­at­ed in this fash­ion in a loca­tion near you, here are more than a few design­ers to follow:

• Vic­to­ria, BC, Cana­da — Ver­be­na Flo­ral Design
• Seat­tle, WA — McKen­zie Powell
• Wash­ing­ton, D.C. — White Mag­no­lia Designs 
• Nashville, TN — Jes­si­ca Sloane 
• Tuc­son, AZ — La Fleur Plantscapes + Flora
• Stay­ton, OR — Gold­en Pearl Flowers
• Sara­so­ta, FL — William’s Wilflowers
• Eli­da, OH — Buck­eye Blooms
• San Fran­cis­co, CA — Stu­dio Choo
• San­ta Cruz, CA — Tes­sa’s Garden

Farm-To-Centerpiece Flowers in 2015

Debra Prinz­ing’s Christ­mas design based on her Slow Flow­ers move­ment to use only flow­ers grown local­ly in an Eco-friend­ly way. Pho­to: debraprinzing.com.

Wedding Couples and Party Planners Embracing Farm-to-Table Cuisine and Flowers

Slow Flow­ers gets its name from the Slow Food move­ment, which start­ed in 1986 by Car­lo Petri­ni and a group of activists who want­ed to pre­serve local meth­ods of pro­duc­ing live­stock and agri­cul­ture, along with cook­ing meth­ods. This phi­los­o­phy inspires today’s farm-to-table craze. From an arti­cle in Archi­tec­tur­al Digest, out­door-liv­ing expert Debra Prinz­ing said, “Peo­ple have been ques­tion­ing the ori­gins of their food and mak­ing informed food choic­es for decades and flow­ers are a part of agri­cul­ture, too, so we should be con­scious of the way in which we con­sume them.”

Debra Prinz­ing’s Slow Flower Chal­lenge from Pin­ter­est. You can upload a new design to this board each week to par­tic­i­pate. Pho­to by Debra Prinzing.

Prinz­ing’s web­site, Slow Flow­ers, is ded­i­cat­ed to fea­tur­ing farm­ers, flo­ral design­ers and event styl­ists who grow, design and use local­ly grown flow­ers and plants. She advis­es that pur­chas­ing flow­ers should be as mind­ful and mea­sured an act as putting food into your body.

Read more about this con­tin­u­ing trend in the New York Times: The Farm-to-Cen­ter­piece Move­ment.

2015 Weekly Slow Flowers Challenge from Debra Prinzing

Our favorite flower book author, Debra Prinz­ing is offer­ing a chal­lenge to flo­ral design­ers who use local flow­ers to post to her Slow Flow­ers Pin­ter­est board a bou­quet a week dur­ing 2015. Each design should be made with flow­ers grown with­in 50 miles of your home base. This is a great way to get out and find your local farm­ers and ven­dors who pro­vide flow­ers and green­ery near you and maybe to get into a lit­tle gar­den­ing on the side.

Flower Duet’s 2015  Schedule of Flower Arranging Classes

Flower Duet’s Studio Saturday Classes & Tours of the LA Flower District

Jan­u­ary 17, 2015 — Sat­ur­day morn­ing LA Flower Mart Tour & Class options fea­tur­ing Win­ter Metallics

Feb­ru­ary 21, 2015 — Sat­ur­day morn­ing LA Flower Mart Tour & Class options fea­tur­ing Tulips

April 18, 2015 — Sat­ur­day morn­ing LA Flower Mart Tour & Class options fea­tur­ing Spring Bulbs

May 16. 2015 — Sat­ur­day morn­ing LA Flower Mart Tour & Class options fea­tur­ing Peonies

July 18, 2015 — Sat­ur­day morn­ing LA Flower Mart Tour & Class options fea­tur­ing Roses

Sep­tem­ber 12, 2015 — Sat­ur­day morn­ing LA Flower Mart Tour & Class options fea­tur­ing Zin­nias & Dahlias

Octo­ber 17, 2015 — Sat­ur­day morn­ing LA Flower Mart Tour & Class options fea­tur­ing Fall Har­vest Flowers

Novem­ber 21, 2015 — Sat­ur­day morn­ing LA Flower Mart Tour & Class options fea­tur­ing Thanks­giv­ing themed Flowers

Decem­ber 12, 2015- Sat­ur­day morn­ing LA Flower Mart Tour & Class options fea­tur­ing Ever­greens with fresh hol­i­day Flowers

Flower Duet’s Studio — Wednesday Night Wedding Series

Jan­u­ary 28, 2015 — Wednes­day Wed­ding Series — Bouquets

Feb­ru­ary 25, 2015 — Wednes­day Wed­ding Series — Centerpieces

March 25, 2015 — Wednes­day Wed­ding Series — Per­son­al Flowers

June 24, 2015 — Wednes­day Wed­ding Series — Bouquets
July 29, 2015 — Wednes­day Wed­ding Series — Centerpieces

August 26, 2015 — Wednes­day Wed­ding Series — Per­son­al Flowers

Octo­ber 28, 2015- Wednes­day Wed­ding Series — Bouquets

Novem­ber 18, 2015 — Wednes­day Wed­ding Series — Centerpieces

Decem­ber 16, 2015 — Wednes­day Wed­ding Series — Per­son­al Flowers

Huntington Library, Art Collections & Botanical Gardens — Art of Floral Design Series

March 21, 2015 — Sat­ur­day — Spring Flowers
Adults & Kids Classes

June 27, 2015 — Sat­ur­day — Gar­den Roses
Adults & Kids Classes

More to come in 2015 at The Hunt­ing­ton Library!

South Coast Botanic Garden Floral Design Classes

Jan­u­ary 25, 2015 — Sun­day — Win­ter White Beach Flowers

March 15, 2015 — Sun­day — Spring Ranun­cu­lus Flowers

May 31, 2015 — Sun­day — Col­or­ful Sum­mer Flow­ers in a Vase

More to come in 2015 at The South Coast Botan­ic Garden!

Oh-My-Garland: Tools for Making Garlands

By Casey Coleman-Schwartz

Cus­tom-made gar­land by Flower Duet adorns stat­ue. Pho­to by Casey Schwartz.

Kit and I have a Dad whose reg­u­lar advice was to always have the right tools when you are doing a job. To make gar­lands, the tools we use include waxed twine, pad­dle wire, gloves (see tool arti­cle below), tape mea­sure and wire cutters.

For our last event of the year, our team of design­ers made over 10 gar­lands, each 6- feet long for a wed­ding. To keep the gar­land fresh as pos­si­ble, we made them less than 24 hours before the wed­ding inside a very cool stu­dio space.

We com­bined an inter­na­tion­al array of local­ly grown New Zealand Pit­tospo­rum, olive tree, euca­lyp­tus, import­ed Ital­ian and Israeli rus­cus, and salal from the Pacif­ic Northwest.

With our pad­dle wire in hand and our hands pro­tect­ed by very sim­ple yet genius gloves, the team bun­dled and lay­ered hand­fuls of bright green­ery to build many fluffy cre­ations.  These gar­lands adorned  each table in a lush cir­cle of green­ery around stat­ues of dogs which the bride had pur­chased to rep­re­sent all the dogs who had been in her life.

Met­al dog sculp­tures were sur­round­ed by lush green­ery and flow­ers. Each dog rep­re­sent­ed a dog the bride had through­out her life. Pho­to and flow­ers by Flower Duet.

Book Review: Flowers in Love

Author and design­er Moniek Van­den Berghe has com­bined her flow­ers in an amaz­ing cre­ative way to wow her clients and her read­ers. She is a graph­ic design­er turned flo­ral design­er, and so in turn has a cre­ative eye for what works well together.

Her fourth book of Flow­ers in Love is bloom­ing this month and is print­ed in both Dutch and Eng­lish. She also has a range of books that all look amazing.

Floral Design Tool: Gloves

Gloves come in pairs — per­fect for cre­at­ing gar­lands or detail work like mak­ing wired corsages.

These gloves are stretchy, offer a per­fect fit, fea­ture only half fin­gers in the Thumb, Point­er and Mid­dle fin­gers and gives pro­tec­tion on the palm and the rest of your hand.

They also have lit­tle grip dots so that wire and cut­ters don’t slip out of your hands. They pro­vide warmth and pro­tec­tion while work­ing with lots of branch­es. These gloves also are great to use if mak­ing bou­ton­nieres and cor­sages in a chilly envi­ron­ment like a flo­ral cool­er, leav­ing your non-gloved fin­gers avail­able for the detail work.

We found this line of gloves at a local chain called Daiso and are hap­py to fill orders if you are not in the area of these stores. They are $5 includ­ing shipping.

The gloves keep your thumb, point­er and mid­dle fin­gers free to do detail work. The palms are cov­ered in grip­py dots to help grasp stems.