Fleur Blanche works in white alone, which leaves nowhere to hide. Tall white gladiolus set the vertical line, calla lilies reach outward on their curved stems, and a centre of white roses, cymbidium orchids, carnations and narcissus fills the space with texture rather than colour. Cream amaranthus trails down one side and a hand-finished palm frond frames the other. Without colour to carry it, the arrangement is held together entirely by shape and surface.
The calla lily is not a lily at all, and like the anthurium its most recognisable feature is a spathe rather than a petal, curling into that single clean funnel. Native to southern Africa, it has been a fixture of formal floristry for more than a century for exactly this reason: one stem reads as a complete line.
The gladiolus takes its name from the Latin for sword, after the shape of its leaves, and opens from the bottom of the spike upward over several days, so the arrangement changes quietly as the week goes on. The cymbidium orchid is the long-distance runner of the group, holding its waxy blooms far longer than anything else here.
Presented in the signature Amicis copper box, the warm metal deliberately set against the white. The photograph shows the Large size.
