One of the pioneers of modern design, William Morris (1834-1896), had it perfectly figured out. Flowers, fruits, and natural elements offered his designs unrivaled motifs, textures, and patterns. The most modern, the most classic, the most apt. Whether the inspirations come, today as yesterday, from English gardens, 16th-century herbaria, Icelandic lichens and mosses, illuminated manuscripts, medieval tapestries, nature represents over the centuries the teacher with the boldest imagination. The one that can move, with equal ease, from exotic features to the most romantic forms. The same will happen, for example, with Givenchy which, after World War II, proposes on itshaute couture dresses lemons and peppers that seem to have come straight from a village market stall. And the same goes for the hats of Gallia e Peter. Whether it's the Chapeau vert in silk organza dyed in salad green or the Petit cerise inspired by the color of cherry wood and made with tulle structure and wire, whether it's silk flowers, roses, bluebells, lily of the valley, watermelon or vegetables, nature is the instinct, the starting block, the most genuine inspiration. Among the first garment accessories in history, after all, there are plants and flowers, the same ones that made Botticelli's Primavera the muse of artists, designers,stylists, from the Pre-Raphaelites to Rosa Genoni who, looking at Botticelli, made a dress that became epoch-making. Nature inspiring art, art inspiring fashion, fashion returning to art in a perpetual feeding of cues and ideas. Season after season, indeed. As on the catwalks, as in the backyard.
