The Blossom Issue | English Version: Groundbreaking

Let's be practical: there's nothing remarkable about seeing flowers on a catwalk in the middle of spring. On this we agree with Miranda Priestly, and this will be the only reference we make to the film you've been thinking about since you read the title of this piece. When, in the middle of March — "a kind of September" — you flick through the trend pages of a fashion magazine, it's very likely that some of them will have dresses, blouses and skirts with floral patterns, which surprises a total of zero people. The publications that still make cover headlines avoid using the expressions "flowers" and "spring" because they know that the reader will invariably associate them with some meme someone sent them about people who insist on making easy jokes about the cyclical way in which, year in and year out, flowers come "back into fashion" at springtime. And by now you've realized that, voilà, here we are to present the 2024 menu — where roses stand out, it's good to see — a veritable enchanted garden, worthy of Emily Dickinson.

It's not exactly unprecedented, of course. Some brands use flowers as a form of language, almost as if they were part of their DNA. Alexander McQueen's spring/summer 2007 collection, entitled Sarabande, featured several dresses covered in real flowers. Coincidence or not, (red) roses would be one of the elements chosen by Sarah Burton, his successor, to integrate her farewell collection, in a beautiful and melancholic adieu to a dream era for the British brand. But before all that, in 1999, Yves Saint Laurent had already decided to close his Haute Couture show with one of the most spectacular looks of all time: Letitia Casta in a magnificent bikini made (only) of roses, probably one of the most iconic images of popular culture at the end of the last century. Valentino has also accustomed us to the presence of flowers, particularly roses, in his aesthetic, and it was precisely these that shone through in two of last year's most important outfits: Zendaya on the SAG Awards red carpet, in a pink dress with roses to make us believe in fairy tales again, and Rihanna at the Met Gala, in a dress + white cocoon in the shape of rosebuds (white, in this case) that brought down the Internet.

It's also not unheard of to mention that Carolina Herrera, via Wes Gordon, chose flowers for spring (some in the form of metal brooches). However, it's totally revolutionary to mention The Dress Rehearsal, Simone Rocha's spring/summer 2024 collection, which brought a new way of presenting flowers, in spring, if we dare write that. Even today we still wonder whether Rocha rolled up the fabric and roses and turned them into tops and dresses, or whether it was the other way round. But what does it matter? If we were already impressed by the size of the trompe-l'oeil, we were left incredulous by another of her inventions: the designer decided to stick flowers inside marvelous transparent garments, as if someone were walking down the street and storing the bouquets they liked best inside their clothes. After this not-so-successful explanation, which doesn't prevent you from consulting Google Images, let's emphasize the popularity of the noisier floral patterns, where various types of flowers happily coexist. Balenciaga, Burberry, Chanel, Richard Quinn and Stella McCartney were just some of the names that bet on the enthusiasm of this type of print. Special mention goes to Comme des Garçons and Marni, who created works of art worthy of a museum, proving, after all, that the combination of flowers and spring can be groundbreaking. We didn't see that coming.

Translated from the original in The Blossom Issue, published March 2024. Full stories and credits in the print version.