The Vision
“They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream our path emerges for a while,….”
Ernest Dowson (1867-1900)
Imagine a world without flowers or as Iris Murdoch observed, people from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy to have such things about us…
Imagine opening a hatbox to reveal a tumbling, true to life, profusion of realistic faux flowers and as you lift the lid and open the wrapping, the delicate aroma of Rose or Jasmine escapes and you are transported to a world where the outside comes in, where town meets country, and country meets town.
Imagine a place such as a hospital room where flowers are banned, but you can take so close an approximation, in the form of realistic faux flowers, as to impart some of the joy that real flowers give… the colour and where possible the uncontaminated fragrance of organic floral waters…
Imagine enjoying flowers despite your vicious hayfever or other allergic reaction…only scented faux flowers can give you this joy.
Imagine not only receiving, but giving such a present…even when life is hard and seems grey…
This is our vision – to bring colour, light and a sense of abundance, even in the most perfect of situations to enhance your living space and affording you joy year-on-year, and certainly in the most imperfect when the beauty of the realistic faux flower blooms can still be your friend in your darkest hours.
We hope that you will share it with us and your friends and family. Let us know what you think too. Please do contact us or write a review if you are inclined to. We are having a lot of fun creating these realistic faux flower creations and hope you will live the dream with us and share our journey.
“I must have flowers always, always and always.”
Claude Monet
Real or Faux Flower?
Real or Faux Flower?
Can you guess if the flower above is a real rose, or a faux flower from Ellie White's silk collection?
Hover over the picture to find out!
Real or Faux Flower?
Can you guess if the flower above is a real rose, or a faux flower from Ellie White's silk collection?
Hover over the picture to find out!
Real or Faux Flower?
Can you guess if the rosehips above are real, or a faux flower from Ellie White's silk collection?
Hover over the picture to find out!
A Potted History of Silk Flowers
“The best representation of that most beautiful of flowers, the rose, is our homage to the real bloom, as sculpture is to movement: ‘Where Art Meets Life.’”
The earliest silk flowers are attributed to the Far East whose earliest civilisations excelled in their depictions of the natural world. The art was revived in Twelfth Century Italy and later Florence, the birth place of the Renaissance after the devastating Black Death of the mid-Fourteenth Century and the court of Louis XIV, the Sun King, when Marie Antoinette’s dresses are recorded as being decorated with thousands of silk roses.
Popularised after the French Revolution and taken up by the Victorians calling the faux blooms, “permanent botanicals”. They used silk flowers with real materials for even greater effect. They are also accredited with the invention of paraffin coated wax flowers.
This idea was later taken up by Colefax and Fowler in the Twentieth Century when Constance Spry promoted an exquisite and expensive method of making realistic wax coated flower arrangements.... Read More