Spring for petals this season. Left to right: Cinq à Sept blue blazer, Anthropologie tote, Frances Valentine blazer and Maison Margiela silk skirt.
By Janet Kelly
FABRIC florals—let’s call them rosettes—rocked the 2023 spring runways of Dries Van Noten, Acne Studios and Simone Rocha, and they continued popping up—on dresses, blazers and chokers—during the fall 2023 shows of Prada, Tory Burch, Carolina Herrera and Sandy Liang. Film stars got the memo early. Michelle Yeoh and Halle Berry showed up on the Oscars red carpet and after parties, respectively, in an Armani Privé with a V-neckline that ended in a blooming, 3D flower and in a Tamara Ralph satin gown embellished with rose-gold crystal flowers. Zendaya turned heads at the Screen Actors Guild Awards wearing a custom duchesse silk, pink bustier dress with 190 cascading roses, designed by Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli.
Warmer days ahead are incentive for a closet tweak or three, never mind a mood boost. It’s been a while since we’ve had some fun with fashion. Should you want inspiration, look no further than our floral-embellished picks below:
Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw in And Just Like That‘s premiere./ Photo by Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max
Remember Carrie’s oversized rosette hibiscus on a white dress in the 2008 Sex and the City movie? In the 2022 TV reboot, And Just Like That, the trend still bloomed with the big teal-colored rose Carrie wore on a white blazer in the series’s first episode.
Skirts ruled Prada’s fall 2023 runway. Like this pencil style, they were mostly white and all adorned with matching, imperfect rosettes. To balance the dressy aspect, Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada paired them with slouchy, crewneck sweaters and pointy ballet flats decorated with folded bows.
Cinq a Sept’s tweedy, cotton-blend, fitted blazer comes with scrunched, three-quarter sleeves, peak lapels and a fabric corsage, plus frayed trim at the cuffs and around the flap pockets. For those who are less than enthusiastic about cropped jackets, note the hip-grazing length here. It’s spring-ready for $495.
Appliquéd rosettes, puff sleeves and a ribbon-tie closure at the back sweeten the look of this cropped lacy blouse from Ted Baker. It sells for $195 at Nordstrom.
Zara’s Suede Ballet Flats ($99.90) have a bit (.8 inches) of a heel, which makes them much more walk-worthy than completely flat styles. And, the gold rosette is stunning against the black background.
You could reserve this silk-blend, satin-y, floral-detail skirt for spring/summer soirées and fancy fêtes like weddings and the like, but you also could dress it down and wear with a white button-up or short-sleeve polo for more casual occasions. Then, you could amortize the rather hefty price tag over more frequent wears. A Maison Margiela design, it sells for $1,645 at Farfetch.
Anthropologie’s posy-covered raffia tote is a colorful accompanying accent, but it’s also functional for, say, a picnic in the park this spring or a beach outing come summertime. It could even brighten up a trip to the grocery store. It sells for $128.
Frances Valentine takes the stuffiness out of a blazer with a removable flower pin and frayed details at the hem and cuffs. The lightweight, cotton bouclé jacket ($398), which also comes in black, is fitted around the shoulders and has a back vent. It’s also selling out in several sizes. Also new at FV are a pink sunny flowered dress with relaxed-looking rosettes splayed along the bottom, along with a ruched cotton blouse, also appointed with floral embellishments.
No need to water this 2.5-inch, pretty-in-pink satin rosette, centered on a 36-inch ribbon choker from Sandy Liang. If candy pink is too sweet, it’s also available in vampire red. Each sells for $135.
Psst, creative DIY-ers: Etsy offers an awesome variety of all sizes of fabric rosette brooches you can pin on blazers, clip on shoes or loop over chokers.
MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale. We are also an Amazon Associate.
Love all of this!! Nancy, that skirt is calling your name, you would be stunning wearing it. I too have some fabric flowers in a drawer… somewhere.
Since I get rid of nothing, I may have some fabric flowers in a drawer someplace, which can be pinned on a blazer. But what I really want is that beautiful skirt from Maison Margiela. Lovely.
I don’t have any spare fabric florals hanging around but I do have a blouse with a floppy rosette that I intend to wear this spring. Everything old is new again.