Paper flowers are a thing—and a very big thing, a quick search of #paperflowers on Instagram reveals. But nailing down just when they became such a popular topic is harder to pinpoint. There was the Chanel’s Spring/Summer 2009 Haute Couture show, where 7,000 handmade, white paper flowers were draped over the railings of an entry stairway and dramatically wound up the room’s 32 columns, which just might have been the moment the maker world took notice of paper flowers. But artisans have been crafting them almost from the moment paper was conceived—and all over the world.
In China
As soon as the Chinese invented paper in 100 B.C. they began fashioning it into lanterns, fans, and of course, flowers. The flowers would be placed in buoyant containers and then floated in water as a meditative religious offering. Like so much else, this paper and the flowers made from it traveled along the Silk Road, first reaching nearby countries like Vietnam—where paper lotus flowers still decorate sacred altars—before making their way through India and then finally reaching Europe in the 11th century.
Perhaps the oldest surviving paper flowers, these date from the 7th to 10th century and were hung in the Mogao Grottoes, Buddhist temples situated at a strategic point along the Silk Road.
In Mexico
Once paper hit Europe it spread quickly to European colonies. The Mayans, who had developed a bark-paper in the 5th century A.D., already had a well-established tradition of paper-like decorations by the time the Spanish introduced true paper (made from pulp, rags, and plant fibers) during the Colonial era. Those first Mexican paper flowers were used to decorate churches and home altars and were made in from muted colors, the edges often accented with gold or silver. Demand for the paper flowers (and in brighter hues) grew, and today there are festivals for paper flower decorating and street vendors hawking paper flower all throughout the country.
In Europe
If you were a woman of certain class in Victorian England, you were expected to both not work (status!) but stay busy (virtue!). To satisfy both social requirements, women of a means took up crafting—and paper flower-making was the top of the to-do list. They were made by carefully disassembling a real flower, tracing each component on paper, and using those pieces as a template. The paper petals were carefully cut out, then ruffled or crimped to achieve a realistic look and then glued or wired onto stems. The flowers were often finished by dipping or painting wax on each petal. The imitation flowers were displayed throughout the house and were considered an indispensable personal accessory.
Contemporary paper artist Livia Cetti—author of the recently released Exquisite Book of Paper Flower Transformations: Playing with Size, Shape, and Color to Create Spectacular Paper Arrangements—is fascinated by these Victorian flower crafts, but she typically takes a more impressionistic approach to paper flower-making. Sometimes, however, a more exacting, scientific method is required. “After taking a rose apart I noticed that the petals were cupped instead of flat, and that's when I came up with the idea of shaping each petal into a similar cupped shape before it's attached, to create volume,” she explains.
Today
That epically beautiful Chanel show perfectly coincided with the rise of the maker movement. Then in 2012, the Martha Stewart booth at the New York City Bridal Market featured a photo backdrop made of giant white paper flowers, and our contemporary paper flower-loving world hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down since: Tiffanie Turner’s giant paper flower heads are hung in museum galleries, Zoe Bradley makes huge hanging installations for Louis Vuitton and Harrods, Livia Cetti sells her breathtaking creations at John Derian in New York and creates huge paper arrangements (like the one created for the opening of Astier de Villatte in Paris.
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