Zendaya Anthurium Dress Helps Anthurium Grow in Popularity

By Jill Brooke

Anthuriums are having a fashionable moment thanks to the visionary work of Loewe’s creative director Jonathan Anderson. When Zendaya wore an innovative Loewe dress with its ginormous white anthurium bodice it, as the saying goes, broke the internet. More than 4.9 million people signed on. 

Not a secret that designers identify with certain flowers that then become brand symbols. With Chanel, it was the camellia. For Dolce & Gabanna, the rose. With Christian Dior, the lily of the valley, which he wore in his buttonhole and had printed on his stationery. He once built an entire collection around the flower. And there is his Diorissimo, arguably the best lily of the valley perfume, from 1956.  

Now it’s the Irish sensation Jonathan Anderson’s turn with the anthurium, prominently displayed in his spring 2023 designs for the Spanish company Loewy (pronounced Lo-EH-vey). Loevy is small potatoes at LVMH, the luxury megacompany that also owns major design companies like Louis Vuitton, Dior, Givenchy, and Patou. But the anthrium dresses have rocketed him into prominence.

                       Anthuriums Are Sexy

Not only did the fashion show have a large looming anthurium canopy where models literally burst forth from the ground to reach the runway, but the anthuriums were on all aspects of his design.

In bags, which harkens back to the Spanish company’s leather design roots, Anderson used the colorful anthurium as an iconic accessory. We saw a green-and-pink flower on a teal-blue bag,  a white, creamy one on a caramel bag and a traditional red anthurium on a lavender bag.

In dresses, flat-chested girls can have their moment with an anthurium trellising over a shoulder and covering the breast as though on a tree limb in the tropics. 

 

Other designs used the anthurium in a shoe. Unlikely to have Sarah Jessica Parker running to buy it, but it worked thematically for the show. 

We here at flowerpowerdaily know that the spadix or phallic spike is what earns the anthurium the nickname of “boys in the morning.” You should know however, that the spadix holds both the male part of the plant (the lower half) and the female part, above. These days the anthurium has escaped its role as “plant most likely to be found in a dentist’s office.” Now it shows up in sophisticated floral designs.

We predict it will be a big plant in 2023.

Florist Ned Kelly used anthuriums for a recent Caramour music gala: they protruded from birdcages and vases. 

 

                            Grow Anthurium at Home

Anthuriums do grow outdoors but need temperatures between 60 and 90 degrees in zones 10 and above. But they make great houseplants that bloom all year. 

There are many resources for this long-lasting flower. Magic Flowers in Ecuador is a source, as is Anther in Holland which has colors from cream to copper.

Hawaii is home to some of the most extraordinary anthuriums in the world.

As Joost Bongaerts, the CEO of Florabundance, Inc points out, the Certified American Grown versions are not stored in cold refrigerators.  They are fresh-cut.

“There’s such an elegance to these flowers,” adds Bongaerts. “Just a special few in a vase” can make a statement. 

 

Jill Brooke is a former CNN correspondent, Post columnist and editor-in-chief of Avenue and Travel Savvy magazine. Currently, She is an author and the editorial director of FPD,  the floral editor for Aspire Design and for Home magazine. She is also a contributor to Florists Review magazine. 

Photo Credit: Instagram