Fashion in Flower: Stéphane Chapelle

French floral whiz Stéphane Chapelle was inspired by Paris couture to dream up an Urban Nature fashionista bouquet in the form of a green leaf-clad “handbag” blooming with red roses and berries. He also imagined a rose, leaf and berry scooter helmet for a bride on the move. Trained as a horticulturalist in Normandy, Chapelle later worked with haute florist Christian Tortu, from whom, he says, “I learned audacity and iconoclastic associations”.  At his boutique and atelier near the Palais Royal, scores of shocking pink hydrangeas might spring from a large container, or branches of blossoms or berries might loop gracefully from tall vases in a display of bucolic generosity. Chapelle is equally adept at inventing fash-favorite white bouquets using towering white Provençal tulips, or his favorite black-centered white Star of Bethlehem, or armfuls of snowy Avalanche roses mixed with olive branches.

29 rue de Richelieu, Paris 1st, 01.42.60.65.66

Originaly published in the March 2012 issue of France Today