Feria

"Feria", Japanese raw silk carnation brooches

It all started last year with a collection of colorful Japanese raw silk ribbons... then I had the idea of making pompons and sew them on a pin to make brooches.... then it literally took me a year to put my idea into practice... and then, my pompons looked like carnations! So I started having fun with the colors and bought more ribbons....


And, as my colorful collection of carnation brooches was getting bigger, it made me think of a name : "feria"... because carnations remind me of the South of France, the cities of Nîmes or Arles, where ladies would wear red carnations in their hair, where people would throw carnations into the arena during bullfights...


And the man who used carnations as his signature was Christian Lacroix, one of my favorite French designers (we're talking Haute Couture here... ) who was actually born in Arles and who used his "provençal" roots as an inspiration. His creations were always bold, bright, theatrical, feminine, adorned with flowers (lots of them!) and gold embroidery...

just like this :


and this :


and, at the end of a "défilé", the audience would applaude and throw red carnations on the catwalk... of course : )