How Constance Spry turned flower arranging into an art form
A new exhibition at London’s Garden Museum pays a floral tribute to one of the 20th century’s most pioneering florists
16 May 2021 • 5:00am
Guest curator of the exhibition Shane Connolly, pictured, shares tales of treasures unearthed, memories shared – and sleepless nights
Credit: Geoff Pugh for the Telegraph
Tomorrow, a new exhibition opens at the Garden Museum in London. Its title is Constance Spry and the Fashion for Flowers and I am the lucky guest curator of the show. I should immediately lay my cards on the table and confess that this is the first exhibition I have ever curated in my life.
Many of us have picked up all manner of extraordinary habits in the past year growing new spring onions from trimmed ones, fermenting anything and everything, baking banana bread, whether we like it or not (I’m very much in the ‘or not’ camp).
But as a lover of fresh flowers, the trend that surprises me most is the seemingly unstoppable rise of dried blooms, with sales up 115 per cent during our various lockdowns.
At 55, I think I am both too young and too old for this trend.
Sure, in 1978, my Christmas money hot in my hand, I raced to Dressers department store in Darlington to buy Edith Holden’s Country Diary Of An Edwardian Lady. I even had a flower press.