How to deck the halls with beautiful blooms? The feted florist and Raf Simons collaborator reveals his top tips
"I would never want to do something with flowers unless it was with Mark – his hand is unique," once proclaimed Raf Simons of florist Mark Colle, the man behind the artful arrangements that adorned the designer's final show for Jil Sander, as well as the orchid wall that astonished attendees at his inaugural show for Dior. Before these seminal collaborations thrust him into the fashion spotlight, Colle and his small Antwerp flower shop Baltimore Bloemen (named after his favourite city) were a well-kept secret among Belgian natives. Now, however, he is one of the most sought-after creatives in the business, brands from all over the world frequently clamouring for his expertise.
His latest British-based commission is currently standing resplendent in the lobby of The London EDITION: a beautiful Christmas tree that from a distance could be mistaken for your typical evergreen, but which, up close, reveals itself to be something utterly unique. "I wanted it to look like a traditional tree when people first caught sight of it," Colle explains to AnOther, "because that is what Christmas is for me: something very traditional. I didn’t want to go overboard with the design." In order to achieve this, the florist set about sourcing foliage in different tones of green. "The main body of the tree is made from all kinds of leaves and branches – from mosses to ivy and other Christmas greens – carefully placed to look very organic, like they grew that way."
But naturally, being a man of floral inclination, it was important for Colle to include blooms within his creation. "Of course, I really wanted to use some flowers too, but I wanted something unexpected and not usually associated with Christmas at all; so I went for anthuriums, which are tropical flowers," he says. Anthuriums come in around 300 varieties but Colle selected just seven for the tree – in a verdant shades of parakeet green, with soft hints of red, white and pink. "It’s a flower that people don’t really go for much any more because it is very 70s and quite plastic looking, so I thought it would be interesting to use it; and they last a long time which was important.”
The towering tree, which took Colle and his assistants some 15 hours to assemble, is a vision of pared-back beauty – a string of bulbous, clear glass fairy lights the only additional decoration, allowing nature, and the florist's immpeccable eye, to speak for themselves.
Here, in the midst of the Yuletide whirl, Colle reveals his top tips for chic festive floristry...
On his inspirations for the London EDITION tree...
"I can’t say that I drew inspiration from this or that thing; I just I went to look at the lobby, which was very beautiful and quite overwhelming of course but also quite simple in a way, and very polished. When I got there I just thought, ‘I want to do something big and green,’ and then just went from there, you know? Often my starting point is just a feeling, a moment of inspiration that you can't describe."
On the traditional poinsettia...
"The poinsettia is of course the most traditional Christmassy plant you can think of. I actually find them very beautiful as well, but they are impossible to keep. They are very sensitive – to drafts, to the cold – so it is extremely difficult to include them in a bouquet unless you replace them every 48 hours."
On his favourite winter flower for festive bouquets...
"I love the helleborus, which they also call the Christmas rose. It flowers in winter, often in the most amazing shades of pink, very pale pink. It is a very beautiful flower."
On Christmas at Baltimore Bloemen...
"As you can imagine we make a lot of Christmas decorations and arrangements at Baltimore. We normally do the first one in mid-November and after that, we work around the clock to get everything ready, because everything we do is made by hand and made to measure. We do a lot of shop windows, a lot of wreaths for people’s homes or front doors – but it all depends on the client. Sometimes we do something a little bit crazy, for an art gallery for example, while other things are very straightforward, like this little bakery where we make the same thing for them every year."
On festive flowers in his own home...
"At my house? I do absolutely nothing. It sounds very unromantic, I know, but by the time I am supposed to do something at my own house, I simply cannot be bothered any more!"
On making a Christmas tree for Dior...
"I made a tree for Dior two years ago, which was auctioned for a cause, so it was totally different. It was made out of thousands and thousands of silk roses piled high into the shape of a tree. I had to design something that the buyer could reuse every year, so it was made out of lots of different layers to make it very easy to assemble."
On creating a Christmas bunch for Raf Simons...
"If I were to send Raf Simons a bunch of Christmas flowers, it would be something that resembles fireworks, for sure. Exactly what it would be made of is something I would have to think about a little bit. But it would definitely be a bunch of fireworks. I can't explain why, it's is just the first thing that sprung to mind; another bolt of inspiration (laughs)!"
