If flowers could dress themselves
Dress EARTHLY
“What if the world was softer? Wrapped in organza, stitched together. What if it held us in its softness? Cocooned in its pockets. Small, fragile, carried. Our weight slightly stretching the seams.
We begin tended to. Dependence precedes the bloom. Later, we learn to mistake uprooting for growth. As if we were meant to unfurl without roots.
A bulb contains within it both past and future blooms. Generational memory that doesn’t look like memory until it opens. Even lifted from its soil, a bulb will live longer than a blossom severed at the stem.
Some things survive by being seen. Some are plucked once they are. To be in focus is to risk.
We learn early how to prune ourselves for viewing. We arrange flowers the way we arrange ourselves. For allure, for display, for protection.
Adornment, when chosen, feels like a way of directing the gaze. When needed, it becomes a kind of asylum. Visible enough to be looked at. Hidden enough to be unseen.
Cut, blend, pass.
Blur.
Belong.
And yet, adornment looks effortless once it arrives. Bouquets appear already blooming, as if things grow without hands. We like it best when beauty hides the work behind it. We prefer not to know what it took.
But bodies remember, contorting within the borders we assign them. We quietly coil beside, closing our eyes.
What if we were all wrapped in something so sheer we didn’t see it? Tumbling through our lives, forgetting it completely. What if that thing was the only thing keeping us from falling?
Beneath our feet, roots weave together, silently sharing what one has to the other.
A tending that offers a ground in bloom.”
Preface by Jazmine Mira Rosier
Bag SUSAN ALEXANDRA
Shoes TIBI
Shirts MAGNOLIA PEARL(left), STORY MFG.(middle), THE TALES (right)
Earrings EARTH, THREAD + STONE
Blazer CURIOUS ORANGE - CLAIRE FLEURY
Knit Top LOLA ROSE courtesy of DEMOLICIÓN in NYC
Sweaters ISKA ORIS courtesy of DEMOLICIÓN in NYC
Photographer - Hannah Rosa Lewis-Lopes @hannahrosalewislopes
Florals & prop styling - Jacqui Jacques @jaccqquiii
Wardrobe stylist & writer - Jazmine Mira Rosier @mirarosier
Flowers from Flower Aggregate in Brooklyn, NYC