Horticouture: Where Garden, Food, and Fashion Merge
August 9, 2012 by Robin Plaskoff Horton
Japanese artist, Takaya, fashions vegetables and fruits into edible headgear.
Fashion trends have always had an influence on other industries, including culinary, interior design, and even gardening. Growing food is inexorably linked to cooking and its presentation a reflection of one’s style–an artfully presented dish, a stylish host, and a fabulously well-dressed table in a beautifully designed indoor or outdoor setting. So why not edible couture?
Designer Betsey Johnson’s Cherry Sour Cream Pie recipe in the American Fashion Cookbook.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America has even produced a 120-page American Fashion Cookbook with a foreword by Martha Stewart and recipes by more than 100 American designers including Isaac Mizrahi’s Mushroom Truffle Spaghetti and Carolina Herrera’s Pommes Toupinel.
To showcase their new garden-inspired collection of baubles, above, German fashion accessories brand Hemmerle has released the new chic cookbook, Delicious Jewels, featuring their colorful bling alongside recipes from chef Tamasin Day-Lewis with ingredients like jade peas, ruby turnips and copper carrots.
Garden to Garb
Japanese artist Takaya adorns his models with fresh ingredients such as raw vegetables and fruits. The former chef creates these deliciously fanciful headpieces employing a hairdressing technique he created called Hanayuishi, which translates to something like “tying together people and flowers.” Starting out in the culinary world, Takaya later became a floral artist in Kyoto. Each piece Takaya creates is “tailored” to fit the individual.
Top chef Roland Trettl and experimental photographer Helge Kirchberger collaborated last year at Berlin’s Museum for Communication for the exhibition, Fashion Food, which showcased portraits of models wearing outfits made entirely of food.
Helge Kirchberger’s photograph for the Fashion Food exhibition at Berlin’s Museum for Communication.
Upscale New York fashion retailer, Barneys, themed one of their holiday catalogs Have a Foodie Holiday, featuring models outfitted in food:
The Barney’s holiday catalogue, photographed by Walter Pfeiffer.
For her Wearable Foods series, below, Korean designer Yoenju Sung blends what she calls the “triggers of our fundamental senses: the desire to wear clothes and the desire to eat.” Those two definitely describe two of my favorite endeavors!
Sung plays with something we are accustomed to keeping for a while, clothing, but makes it out of fresh foods that will not last. Not sure if it’s a comment on the ephemeral nature of life and food, but her designs are strikingly beautiful.
Korean designer Yoenju Sung’s edible creations look good enough to eat.
After Chinese actress Gao Yuanyuan, below, became a vegetarian, she said she “felt so much lighter” that it prompted her to publicize her new eating habits by dressing in a gown made of lettuce leaves and sporting a necklace of chili peppers, below.
One of my favorite finds–Fulvio Bonavia’s series, A Matter of Taste, features fashionable accessories constructed using fruits and veggies:
Bonavia’s created a hat made of artichoke leaves; purses fashioned from various berries, broccoli, and another from cheese; a helmet carved from a watermelon, and even a set of headphones using two Granny Smith apples.
To promote their Picnic Bag, French luxury retailer, Hermès, created a clever campaign featuring versions of the bag created out of fruits, vegetables, and other edibles.
Then there are horticulturally-inspired fashion accessories like this watering can purse from Moscow designer-makers Krukrustudio.
And Nike’s garden-inspired shoes for Liberty of London…
Some say you are what you eat. Maybe you are what you wear? Or perhaps, you even eat what you wear. It’s all kind of growing on me…
Category: Experiencing, Food & Entertaining
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These are amazing! Especially the dresses. They almost seem a little wasteful- unless that was their dinner, too…
— August 9, 2012 @ 14:20
The original garb involved fig leaves. . . .
— August 10, 2012 @ 08:24
Scrumptious!
— August 10, 2012 @ 11:59
I love the artichoke cap. I’ve just posted about globe artichokes on my blog, so it’s the vegetable du jour for me.
— August 10, 2012 @ 22:40
totally brilliant. love the bags.
— August 13, 2012 @ 20:01
I grew some golden chard this year, which is looking great, and is the one thing to have evaded the marauding armies of slugs…but I picked some for the first time a couple of days ago and it tasted VERY bitter – even with copious amounts of olive oil, butter and salt it had an unpleasant tang. I’ve had chard plenty of times before and not had this problem – could the bitterness have been made worse by the weather conditions this year?
— August 14, 2012 @ 00:35
I grew some golden chard this year, which is looking great, and is the one thing to have evaded the marauding armies of slugsâ?¦but I picked some for the first time a couple of days ago and it tasted VERY bitter â?? even with copious amounts of olive oil, butter and salt it had an unpleasant tang. Iâ??ve had chard plenty of times before and not had this problem â?? could the bitterness have been made worse by the weather conditions this year?
— August 16, 2012 @ 21:56
Oh…I love your garden trellises over the walking path. Beautiful idea.The borage looks so healthy and full. You must have sent us some of your rain because we got some much needed rain today. Your back garden looks like a respite and a spot to enjoy all of the work you put into the garden. It is very beautiful.
— August 20, 2012 @ 02:05
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— August 5, 2018 @ 23:21
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— August 6, 2018 @ 06:25