A few years ago I joined the masses in the hatred of carnations, but I'm not sure why I ever did.
At the time I was a florist and I had seen enough carnations designed in the same tiresome way to last a lifetime. Then I watched François Trauffaut's Bed & Board and began to rethink my position on the matter. In the film, Antoine Doinel, played by Jean-Pierre Léaud, dyes carnations in vibrant tones as a profession. He works out of a courtyard set up with green metal garden tables and enamel flower buckets (the kind you only find in France in the 1960s and 70s). A carnation is like a clean canvas, with a remarkable ability to "drink" any color in which their its stem is submerged. Consider this DIY from Martha Stewart; she uses green coloring, but I'm even thinking indigo dye could work.
Above: Léaud with bright pink carnations. Photograph via Cinephiliacs.
Above: The process of dying the flowers takes place in an enamel bucket (for similar buckets see: Design Sleuth: French Enamel Buckets). Photograph via Cinema Burn.
Above: Like the carnation, Limonium (also known as statice, sea lavender, or marsh rosemary) in white, takes up dyed water as well. These multi-colored stems are seen in the loft of fashion director Massimo Cannavacciuolo in Milan. Photography by Marco Annunziata for Freunde von Freunden.
N.B.: Floral fanatics can find all 125 of our Flora posts in our archive.