Every year I try to get there, and every year, I drool and my mind boggles over the sheer size of the job that has become truly iconic. The David Jones Flower Show kicks off the first week of Spring and runs for just under two weeks.
After years of being in the Floristry industry, the last thing you want to do is become stale, but there will be times for every creative when the juices don’t flow and the inspiration dries up. Spring is an intensely busy time for most florists. Houses are open for sale, and weddings fill the calendar, so it is a great time to revive your sense and take some inspiration from some of our colleagues who are truly unique and talented. Anyone who works with flowers knows that really we just wander around the perimeter of the David Jones store to reinvigorate ourselves and to sap up some fresh inspiration.
The show is quite the feat, considering that a lot of those flowers are sitting in what essentially transforms to a glass hot box and is subjected to hours of sunlight each day.
This year Luminescent celebrates 30 years of the David Jones Flower show, and the ingenuity of this years show is that whilst it blooms in the daylight, the beauty of the flowers is showcased in a luminsecent ‘glow’ throughout the night as well. This years show partnered with the season’s key fragrances.
The displays in each window are as unique and intricate as ever, and as a florist I KNOW the hard work that went into conceptualising the show as well as the long hours and sleepless nights it took to bring it all together. Seed Flora is responsible for the wonderful work, and both George Low and Elizabeth Johnson continue to inspire us years after the two began collaborating on the event.
For everyone in life, it is important to stop, and look at things from a fresh perspective and for me, that is exactly what the show represents. I know how to physically put arrangements like this together, but I certainly don’t get the opportunity to do work on a large scale like this anymore with two littlies, but for me, it is awe inspiring to see someone out there creating magic. It is also reassuring to see jobs like this still exist. Retail, we are told is dying; and with that, surely the budget for a job like this, must go too.
It fills my heart with hope to see it still happening 30 years on, and still drawing an amazing crowd. Not sure that was the new light they intended to shed, but still, that is quite Luminescent.
Enjoy the picture show below, but if you get a chance, the show finishes this Sunday, so get in there to get a glimpse yourself.
Fwf x