THE ORCHID SHOW: FLORALS IN FASHION

 

February 17–April 21, 2024

The New York Botanical Garden

 

Orchids Take to the Runway in The Orchid Show: Florals in Fashion at, February 17–April 21, 2024

 

21st Edition of NYBG’s Iconic Annual Exhibition Features Dramatic, PicturePerfect Fashion-Inspired Floral Designs from Collina Strada by Hillary Taymour, Dauphinette by Olivia Cheng, and FLWR PSTL a.k.a. Kristen Alpaugh

 

Orchid Nights Ofer Evening Exhibition Viewing, Music, Cocktails, and Live Performances by the International House of Miyaki Mugler, for Adults 21 and Over on Seven Select Dates

 

 

Fashion-themed creations by (left to right) Collina Strada by Hillary Taymour, Dauphinette by Olivia Cheng, and FLWR PSTL a.k.a. Kristen Alpaugh (NYBG Photos by Marlon Co)

 

Bronx, NY— The 21st edition of the iconic orchid exhibition at The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), The Orchid Show: Florals in Fashion, is a fashion-inspired celebration of all things orchid. Running Saturday, February 17 through Sunday, April 21, 2024, the sartorial scene is set by thousands of diverse orchids and accessorizing plants in dramatic, pictureperfect installations, highlighting the bold, fashion-themed creations of three rising design stars—Collina Strada by Hillary Taymour, Dauphinette by Olivia Cheng, and FLWR PSTL a.k.a. Kristen Alpaugh—who have all been inspired by nature. Visitors can walk the runway, strike a pose, and show of their own personal fare, love for orchids, and fashion-forward connections to the natural world as this season’s presentation brings the catwalk into NYBG’s Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. On seven select dates, Orchid Nights ofer evening exhibition viewing, music, cocktails, and live performances by the International House of Miyaki Mugler, for adults 21 and over. 

 

Tickets for The Orchid Show: Florals in Fashion and Orchid Nights may be purchased at https://www.nybg.org/event/the-orchid-show-forals-infashion/.

Often called the “divas of the plant world,” orchids have inspired designers such as Halston, Rodarte, and others across the globe for decades. They are one of the largest and most diverse families of fowering plants on the planet. To create The Orchid Show, horticulturists at NYBG identifed and assembled an extraordinary selection of these colorful and coveted fowers, including iconic and rare specimens from the Botanical Garden’s collections, as well as from some of the fnest growers in the world. In this year’s exhibition, orchids are accented by a diversity of other plants, including epiphytic cacti, carnivorous nepenthes, air plants, and more, in displays of living attire.

 

In The Orchid Show: Florals in Fashion, three visionaries each present their unique perspective on the connections between the botanical world and fashion. Hillary Taymour is founder and creative director of Collina Strada, a fashion platform dedicated to promoting climate and social awareness and fostering self-expression. Olivia Cheng is designer and founder of fashion label Dauphinette, which is best known for its use of preserved botanicals and repurposed materials to create upcycled fashions. FLWR PSTL is Kristen Alpaugh, botanical artist, and founder and creative director at Haus of Stems, the world’s frst on-demand botanical art atelier, known for her experimental botanical artwork and custom wearables.

 

The Orchid Show: Florals in Fashion explores the beauty of these formidable fowers through the striking displays of the featured designers. As visitors enter the Haupt Conservatory’s Palms of the World Gallery, they experience a “First Look” installation of foral dresses designed by Dauphinette. In front of a wall of orchids, mirrors, and other plants, mannequins on a grand staircase are adorned with Olivia Cheng’s dramatic arrangements, including headdresses of Tillandsia air plants suspended within an orb to create a foating effect. The plant-based outfts are delicately made of colorful living material, such as elegant blue-green tresses of Huperzia, pastel rosettes of Echeveria, and delicate Spanish moss. The scene sets the stage for the exhibition and begins the orchid-dotted journey through the Conservatory’s verdant Lowland and Upland Rain Forest Galleries. There’s an orchid diversity display along the way and later, a tunnel of lights where visitors can strut their stuf as if walking the catwalk.

 

In the Seasonal Exhibition Galleries, FLWR PSTL’s dramatic installations evoke a “CloseUp” experience, beginning with a monumental cape made of a variety of Phalaenopsis orchids in diferent shades of pink and purple, accentuated by mini ferns. A water lily hoop skirt fountain, thigh-high foral boots, and eye-catching “Iritherium”—iridescent painted Anthurium plants—are examples of the delightful creations stemming from FLWR PSTL’s imagination.

 

A fowery threshold leads to the fnal gallery, which showcases Collina Strada’s “FreezeFrame” runway vignettes. Hillary Taymour uses upcycled materials such as “rose sylk,” which is made from salvaged rose plants, and she was the frst to use artifcial intelligence to generate looks for her New York Fashion Week and Spring/Summer 2024 collection. Some of her creations are on view in The Orchid Show’s fower-flled fashion runway frames.

 

Geometric plantings complement the runways, while orchid-decorated Kokedama—spheres of moss in which an ornamental plant grows—foat overhead. Vanda orchids, colorful miniature Phalaenopsis, variegated succulents, and other plants clothe the A.I.-inspired characters in the snapshot tableaus.

 

More Ways to Be Fashionable at The Orchid Show

 

On-site activations and ongoing public programs include “Orchid Basics” Q&A opportunities at NYBG Shop on weekends and Wednesdays, plus “Meet the Orchid Experts” and “A Treat for the Senses: Sensory Table” on select dates in the Conservatory, providing more chances to learn about these marvelous fowers and engage with them through touch, smell, sight, and even sound.

 

NYBG Shop provides a multitude of top-quality orchids—from exotic, hard-to-fnd specimens for connoisseurs to elegant yet easy-to-grow varieties for beginners—along with orchid products and books for purchase.

 

On select dates during The Orchid Show: Florals in Fashion, adults age 21 and over can experience the mesmerizing exhibition through Orchid Nights, with evening viewing, music, live performances, and a selection of cocktails and lite bites available for purchase at seasonal bars. Performances by the Iconic International House of Miyake Mugler, led by choreographer NY Father Icon Arturo Miyake-Mugler (Arturo Lyons), winners of Season 2 of HBO Max’s Legendary, transport Orchid Night revelers to a ballroom culture scene with movement and fashion. Celebrate creative freedom by showing up in chic couture and foral fnery, voguing into the night. Seven Orchid Nights take place on: Saturday, March 30; Friday, April 5; Saturday, April 6; Friday, April 12; Saturday, April 13; Friday, April 19; and Saturday, April 20, 2024, from 7 to 10 p.m.

 

About the Guest Designers

Collina Strada isn’t just a fashion label, it's also a platform for social issues and awareness created by Hillary Taymour, whose main concern is staying true to her craft, and staying on course to becoming a fully sustainable and radically transparent brand. Based and manufactured in New York, the brand’s cult-status core pieces transcend trends. Taymour’s designs are imbued with a fearlessly fluid attitude, re-inventing classics and unexpected details. Collina Strada embodies humor and youth. The brand DNA is now firmly cemented in the ability to look inward, even when loud and expressive on the outside. Season after season, Collina Strada’s goal remains the same: to encourage self-reflection through clothing. How can you be the best version of yourself today? Showing each season on the official New York Fashion Week schedule, Collina Strada has reimagined their shows to spur others into action, tackling global problems from racism to politics. “We are in a crucial state of change right now and the more we do, the more we can impact others to take action,” says Hillary Taymour.

 

Olivia Cheng is the founder and Chief Creative Officer of the luxury clothing brand Dauphinette. At age 19 and with only $2,000, Cheng founded Dauphinette as a collection of upcycled outerwear, calling it “The Happiest Brand on Earth.” Since then, Cheng has parlayed her passion for under-appreciated and unconventional materials into everything from her famous resin-preserved jewelry to the couture-like pieces that feature 50 percent upcycled materials and go down Dauphinette’s New York Fashion Week runways. In 2021, Cheng became the youngest designer to showcase her designs as part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s In America: A Lexicon of Fashion exhibit, and last year she was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Art and Style list. As Dauphinette’s West Village flagship in New York City has quickly turned into one of the downtown crowd’s favorite shopping spots, Cheng sets her sights on incorporating upcycling into the global luxury fashion vernacular, expanding the world of Dauphinette through activations in Los Angeles, Miami, Paris, and beyond. 

 

FLWR PSTL a.k.a. Kristen Alpaugh, is a pioneering botanical artist with a unique form of foristry through innovative techniques and approaches to the feld. Her experimental work, a blend of natural beauty, fne art and high fashion, has graced the pages of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, and Vogue. Alpaugh showcased her talents on HBO Max's Full Bloom in 2020 and, in 2022, made history at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design with the groundbreaking exhibit Flower Craft. In 2020, she founded Haus of Stems, the world's frst on-demand botanical art atelier. This innovative venture ships luxury hand-painted fowers, adorned with FLWR PSTL's proprietary holographic fnishes, to forists and foral enthusiasts across the U.S. and Canada. In the new and enchanting world of botanical art, FLWR PSTL passionately crafts stories that ignite the senses, encouraging viewers to lose themselves between the real and the rarifed.

https://www.nybg.org

 

 

*2012 뉴욕식물원 오키드쇼 가이드

https://www.nyculturebeat.com/index.php?mid=FunNY2&document_srl=11029