There’s something about dried flowers that feel, to me, like memories-in-the-making. Maybe it has to do with how fragile they are, their petals paper-thin and oh-so-delicate. It could be their color, muted and often shimmery, as though they’ve acquired a patina over time. Maybe instead dried flowers have this antique feeling to me because of the role they play in own memories. I can still remember standing, awe-struck, in front of the glass case that held my Mom’s bridal bouquet. It was the perfect, ladylike cloud of flowers: preserved white roses and stephanotis finished with my Gram’s satin and lace-trimmed ribbon, which was looped intricately around the flowers in a style I had never seen before and have not seen since. That bouquet left the most poignant mark on my life, inspiring me to create flowers myself. I wanted to be able to make flowers pretty enough for a bride to carry on her wedding day, and then preserve and pass down to her daughter or granddaughter.
Even though drieds are so young and fresh and hip, the kind of flowers a style blogger or magazine editor would choose (you can already imagine the bride wearing a wide brimmed hat and a bohemian fringed dress or a sexy pantsuit with her bouquet of earthy dried flowers) they feel vintage in the best way. Dried flowers are like things you can almost remember. You can imagine finding them buried in a chest that holds secret love letters, or an attic full of treasures, or a pinned to a beautiful vintage dress or hat. They feel powerful enough to be passed down; they are heirloom-ready.
And dried flowers break your heart in the best way because they look so absolutely angelic. There are tiny white clusters of flowers, like winged ammobium and marcela, that look like the littlest stars. Preserved white ferns and plumes of pampas grass remind me of angel’s wings—they are just extra ethereal. There is a purity to these flowers, a kind of innocence.
Dried flowers remind me of…
*𝓅𝓇𝒶𝒾𝓇𝒾𝑒 𝒹𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓈𝑒𝓈
*𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒹𝓂𝒶𝒹𝑒 𝓁𝒶𝒸𝑒
*𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒹𝓌𝓇𝒾𝓉𝓉𝑒𝓃 𝓁𝑒𝓉𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓈
*𝓅𝑜𝓌𝒹𝑒𝓇𝓎 𝓅𝑒𝓇𝒻𝓊𝓂𝑒𝓈
*𝒹𝑒𝓁𝒾𝒸𝒶𝓉𝑒 𝑒𝓂𝒷𝓇𝑜𝒾𝒹𝑒𝓇𝓎
*𝑜𝓁𝒹 𝓅𝒽𝑜𝓉𝑜𝓈
*𝐸𝒹𝓌𝒶𝓇𝒹𝒾𝒶𝓃 𝓈𝓉𝓎𝓁𝑒 𝓉𝒶𝒷𝓁𝑒𝒸𝓁𝑜𝓉𝒽𝓈 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓁𝒶𝒸𝑒-𝓉𝓇𝒾𝓂𝓂𝑒𝒹 𝓇𝓊𝓃𝓃𝑒𝓇𝓈
*𝒹𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓂𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝒹𝒻𝓁𝑜𝓌𝑒𝓇 𝓂𝑒𝒶𝒹𝑜𝓌𝓈
*𝑅𝑒𝒷𝑒𝒸𝒸𝒶 𝐻𝑒𝓎’𝓈 𝟣𝟫𝓉𝒽 𝒸. 𝓉𝓇𝑒𝑒 𝒾𝓁𝓁𝓊𝓈𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈
*𝓅𝑜𝑒𝓉𝓇𝓎
I’ve never considered myself a vintage girl per se, but dried flowers have me reconsidering. They’re old-fashioned and romantic in a way that makes me long for a good inky pin and linen paper, for the art of letter- writing. For tea leaves and rain-drizzled afternoons, a gilded mirror and a Proust novel. A soft vintage dress and a wildflower meadow to walk through.
One of my favorite passages ever described a particular moment of a trip to Paris as being nostalgic before it was even over. The concept took my breath away—what would it be like to be in a moment that you knew, just knew, was already indelibly written into poetic memory? What is it like to stand in a moment that has, as Wordsworth would say, “life and food / For future years”? Such moments are sort of somewhere beyond the space-time continuum, capturing some of the longings of our past, the fullness of the present, and a glimmer of the future. And I guess that’s how dried flowers strike me—as nostalgic before they’re even part of the past. I see a bride carrying a dried flower bouquet, and I can simultaneously imagine the photo of her 50 years from now. It’s not so much that these flowers are timeless. They have a more peculiar brand of magic—some powerful combination of innocence and elusiveness and ethereality and nostalgia-in-the-making. They are the not-yet vintage flowers.
Tell me, would you carry a dried flower bouquet? Do dried flowers feel antique or even nostalgic to you? What do they remind you of? Try making a list like I did and let the memories and words be as abstract, poetic, or nostalgic as you please.
