Philly Flower Show offers a peek into a fashionably botanical future

In advance of the Philadelphia Flower Show, a pop-up display at King of Prussia Mall envisions a future where flowers rule all.

Each of the five displays features a facet of the gardener's work, real flowers associated with that work, and a fictional hybrid, such as The Herbalist's Daffodiris. (Emma Lee/WHYY)

Philly Flower Show offers a peek into a fashionably botanical future

In advance of the Philadelphia Flower Show, a pop-up display at King of Prussia Mall envisions a future where flowers rule all.

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The annual Philadelphia Flower Show, opening March 1, often boasts rare plants you may have never seen before: the dancing lady orchid, anyone? The Vietnamese begonia mountaniformis?

The show’s preliminary pop-up at King of Prussia Mall this week goes even further to show flowers that don’t exist.

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setups in the mall
The Flower Show display at King of Prussia Mall consists of five tableaux, each featuring a different facet of the gardener's work, The Herbalist, The Seed Starter, The Perennialist, The Flower Farmer and The Beekeeper. (Emma Lee/WHYY)

The Daffordirist (Narcissirid futurm)? The Tulirose (Tulirose luxceae)? These imaginary hybrids are graphically represented on a series of kiosks as mash-ups of real flowers. They might exist sometime in the future — or not.

Seth Pearsoll, vice president and creative director of the Philadelphia Flower Show, and his design team made the fictional flowers up out of thin air.

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“We will never have a rose and a tulip and an orchid mashed together,” he said. “We collaged real flowers into these fun, futuristic flowers that don’t actually exist. In keeping with the spirit of horticulture and botanical taxonomy, we gave everything a common name and a Latin name.”

The upcoming 196th Philadelphia Flower Show has a theme of “Gardens of Tomorrow.” To hype its event, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society has installed five tableaux in a corridor of the mall surrounded by high-end fashion retailers like Jimmy Choo, Yves St. Laurent and Louis Vuitton.

Each tableau features a large-scale illustration of the invented flower, fronted by a mannequin representing a gardening archetype: The Beekeeper, The Herbalist, The Perennialist, The Seed Starter and The Flower Farmer.

Pearsoll sees these as more than archetypes. He envisions a future where these occupations form the economic backbone of a “fantasy world where horticulture rules all.”

“I mean, that’s one possible future,” he said. “If you come to the flower show, maybe you’ll help make that a possibility. It’s looking forward at a brighter world.”

a man looks at a display
A visitor to the King of Prussia Mall pauses to take in the colorful displays promoting the Philadelphia Flower Show. (Emma Lee/WHYY)

The mannequins are dressed in fashion-forward gardening chic. The Perennialist wears a prison-orange jumpsuit under a quilted jacket of a lighter shade of orange, finished with pink Sorel clogs. The Flower Farmer sports an ensemble of lavender on lavender on lavender: cargo shorts, chore shirt and brimmed hat that are all the same shade of pale purple. The Seed Starter is fully bedecked in chocolate brown with beige clogs.

“We were going for a monochrome, futuristic look for each of the outfits,” said designer Liz Barrella, founder of Elle Projects. “Very stark. Very pop.”

She wore all black to the mall, but said she would welcome these pops of color into her own wardrobe, particularly the orange jumpsuit of The Perennialist, the figure with whom she feels the most kinship.

“Maybe not in orange, but I would definitely wear this outfit,” Barrella said. “I love it.”

The mannequins are meant to represent gardening in high style, anticipating an imagined future where a luxury brand like Christian Louboutin, two doors down, might carry haute couture gardening galoshes.

“I would love to see Jimmy Choo come out with a beekeeper suit,” Barrella said. “That would be very cool.”

The Gardens of Tomorrow pop-up will be on view at King of Prussia Mall until Feb. 17. The Philadelphia Flower Show opens March 1 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

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