The fashion for flowers: Constance Spry theweek.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theweek.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Morning glory arrangement by Constance Spry (around 1930) Photo: Cowderoy & Moss Ltd; RHS Lindley Collections
It is not exactly a story of rags to riches, but Constance Spry, the daughter of a railway clerk, reached the pinnacle of society through trade and art. An exhibition at London’s Garden Museum of around 100 photographs, personal items and artefacts never before exhibited will tell the story of one of the 20th century’s most colourful and influential florists.
Spry was trained in bacteriology and sanitary inspection but in 1921 she became principal of a day school in London’s Hackney where poverty and deprivation were rife. Consequently, her true metier came late. It was not until she reached her early 40s that Spry gave up teaching and opened a shop, called Flower Decoration, in 1929. Her first formal patron was Granada Cinemas but it was her daring arrangements of hedgerow flowers in the window of the royal perfumer Atkinsons of New Bond Street