KAILAND’S WORLD
Like transitory sculpture, Parisian florist Louis-géraud Castor finds that the impermanence of his medium fuels his art.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Dennis Leupold STYLED BY Oretta Corbelli After initially following in dad Stevie Wonder’s footsteps, Kailand Morris shifts his focus to the fashion world.
Louis-géraud Castor studied archeology and art history before becoming an art dealer for 15 years. In 2017 he switched gears once again, and today his sophisticated, unexpected creations make Castor Fleuriste the fashion and design worlds’ go-to florist.
Your flowers seem to come straight out of a watercolor L’OFFICIEL: painting, rather than from nature. Is that your signature? Yes, there’s a part of me that can’t help but LOUIS-GÉRAUD CASTOR: feel like an artist. My affinity for the works of Pierre Soulages, Mark Rothko, Serge Poliakoff, Yves Klein, and Francoisxavier Lalanne are subconsciously woven into my own work. When you understand the principles of oil painting and pigments, that is exactly what one finds in flowers.
Tell us about the bouquets you have created for the fashion world. L’O: In all of the fashion houses, there is always someone who LGC: loves flowers deeply. My collaboration with Prada began early on because my work corresponded to [Miuccia’s] fondness of single-flower bouquets. I also work with Christophe Lemaire; we share a taste for Japanese floral arrangements—i remember his rather surprising order of black dahlias. More recently, I have been working with Saint Laurent and Anthony Vaccarello, who is very fond of baccara roses.
L’O: What was it like to work on Fendi’s Spring 2021 Couture show? The idea was to create a dialogue between England and LGC: Italy to commemorate the arrival of [artistic director] Kim Jones. I proposed making a crack in the marble floor, as if it was broken, from which flowers would emerge. The inspiration was Virginia Woolf. Fresh flowers wouldn’t last, so I asked artist Miyouki Nakajima to create silk roses entirely patinated with brass powder. To bring vegetation to the space, I worked with Atelier Devineau, and to recreate the feeling of being in a meadow at the end of summer, I brought dried flowers, mosses, and everything in between. It was like a movie production.