Botanical Couture Workshop
October 19th & 20th

Woodland Workshop
November 9th & 10th

Botanical Couture Workshop
October 19th & 20th

Fashion has long been inspired by nature. In this specialized workshop natural materials and floral arrangements take their inspiration from Haute Couture. Create show stopping headpieces, dresses and other wearables.

Headpieces
Françoise is known for her avant garde headpieces. Her dedication to unfailing mechanics and materials exploration is the key to these pieces of sculpture. Her knowledge will be shared as you construct flexible armatures and your creativity expands as you build intricate and cascading arrangements from foliage, bark, bundles of berries, succulents and flowers. These dramatic headpieces show off all the tools and tips of the trade that Françoise imparts.

Flexible Floral Fabric
Think scarves, belts, wristbands and open ended possibilities… You will learn the techniques involved in creating flat expanses of botanical “fabric” that can be worn and styled into various shapes. This is a wonderful opportunity to really explore the vast amount of texture that nature provides!

Dresses
Whether you would like to make a floral garment for a show-stopping window display, to participate in a competition or even to wear for a special occasion, the techniques you will learn can be adapted and applied to a myriad of ideas. As this is a very time consuming project, students will work in pairs to make the dress form for a mannequin and collaborate on the design and application of leaves, flowers and seed pods. Students have been requesting this class and we are excited to be able to offer it to you!

photo Theresa Bear

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Woodland Workshop
November 9th & 10th

Françoise shares her passion for keenly observing nature along with deeply honed architectural skills in her popular Woodland Texture Workshop. You will learn how to see, source, scale and shape natural works of art as well as a plethora of techniques & mechanics. Françoise will impart the detail that goes into utilizing logs, barks, branches, mosses, mushrooms, seed pods and berries in rich and textural compositions.

Take with you the tools to find your own vision and local bounty will be emphasized as you learn how to design woodland bouquets, centerpieces, log arrangements and a landscape in a frame.

photo Theresa Bear

photo Jamie Bosworth