Monday, June 27, 2011

Poppy




Pink oriental, just opening, looks like Fortuny silk (link is to some gorgeous photos of a Fortuny gown on a Flickr photostream, with thanks to Atelier Sol).

If I never get to see Venice and die, I think perhaps the Fortuny museum might be one of the things I shall most regret not seeing.

13 comments:

Zhoen said...

Both flowers and silks are gorgeous. Thank you.

marja-leena said...

Oh my, look at those fine pleats, just gorgeous!

Roderick Robinson said...

"Never get to Venice and die"? Are these intimations of immortality? Mind you, if someone gets up a campaign towards this end I'll be pleased to sign the book and make a modest contribution. Make that a huge contribution. I really must find a way of suppressing my initial West Riding instincts.

I'm inclined to think France does poppies (at the side of the road) better than anywhere else although this is probably pure prejudice. It's the way the stalks become invisible and the flowers are turned into a hovering glow. Chez Bonden was invaded some time ago by Californian poppies and these seemed to be the pick of the bunch. One can get quite sentimental without even the slightest allusion to Flanders field.

baby nursing covers said...

Looks so beautiful! I find them so rare.

earlybird said...

a stunning compilation. Amazing that something so fragile can be so deicate at the same time as being assertive.

herhimnbryn said...

Oh my! I looked at the images and thought,'they look like that italian silk. What is it called?'. Then you told me. Thankyou.

The Crow said...

Breath-catching images - divine - gorgeous bloomscoismshe! They make me want to kiss them, ever so gently.

Then, the bonus of the Fortuny images. Thank yu for this, Lucy.

The Crow said...

...sighhh...I typed the word veification without checking to see where it was appearing. The last word in the first sentence is blooms, not bloomscoismshe.

Everything else is accurate, however. Thanks, again.

PS: hope Mol is okay today.

Lucy said...

Thanks chaps.

There was an exhibition of Fortuny silk in the museum in Brighton when I lived there as a teenager, beautiful stuff, very memorable, they did good Art Nouveau and Deco exhibitions there. The most sumptuous colour is the peacock blue, I think. Surprisingly little on the web, the museum doesn't really have its own site, and it's only in Italian with no photos of the exhibits. My sister's been there but she said they almost discovered it by accident. The Flickr photos were the best I found anywhere.

BB - I thought the syntax of that sentence was pleasingly ambiguous and wittily allusive, moi. I have the feeling there are more poppies about these days, the intensive farming in our part of the country has probably done them no good, elsewhere it might be different. But I think perhaps those deliberate mixed plantings of things like poppies, cornflowers, marigolds etc, has helped a bit to re-establish them. They are lovely flowers in all their forms, I think, including those zingy orange Californian ones!

Crow - thanks, Mol's generally well, she had a good walk with her friend Porridge (the Bitch about Brittany, or one of them!) yesterday. We've more or less abandoned the bucket as she isn't bothering at the stitches and it's been so hot. She occasionally yelps oddly and rushes off, often into a quiet corner. I hope it's just a twinge from things getting better or stitches pulling that need to be out, it only seems to be momentary. Bless you for asking, hope things are OK with you, love.

marly youmans said...

That upper right-hand sideways skirts one is my favorite, but they are all luscious. Love the newish pink and peach poppies--which one is this?

Lucy said...

Marly, Clive asked me that this time last year, if it was Mrs Perry, I just checked back. In fact I don't know the variety, they were given to us I think from a friend's garden and he didn't tell us!

I love the pink ones, they are quite different characters to the reds. I saw the old lady, Patty, after whom the very successful 'Patty's plum' was named on TV a while ago. She had an abundance of promiscuously hybridising poppies in her garden in Devon, and the breeders, her friends, used to pick out what they thought were the most interesting to breed from. Patty herself didn't care for the plum colour much at all, prefering the deeper wine reds, but plum was all the rage at that moment.

zephyr said...

Patti's poppies...now that's a garden i would love to see/visit.

Love your collage.

leslee said...

It really does look like the gown in your link! Sometimes I see a patch of flowers or fallen leaves or some other pattern in nature and I imagine this is how fabric designers get their inspiration.