Business is blooming for French florist covering Paris facades in flowers
French florist Luc Deschamps never thought he’d earn himself a reputation as a street artist. But after seeing artificial flowers used to decorate buildings in the United States, he decided to make his own designs – which now adorn shop fronts all over Paris.
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Aptly named Deschamps – whose surname translates literally as “from the fields” – has been a florist for the last 40 years. He is somewhat surprised that he’s now referred to as a “floral street artist”, but he’s clearly chuffed that the trend is providing an extra branch to his business.
“Instead of using small mosaic squares or paint sprays or stencils like [French artist] Miss.Tic, I use flowers and natural branches. And you can see it from the street,” he told RFI’s Anne Bernas.
“I’m not a gardener … I didn't invent anything, frankly. I only copy nature.”
Deschamps explains that he is inspired by the wild, sometimes chaotic lines he observes in the natural world – like the branches of an apple tree, for instance.
“They are not all straight, not aligned. There is nothing Cartesian about it. It's crazy. Nature is madness, it is disorder,” he says.
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Since his first creation in the 6th arrondissement of Paris in 2015, Deschamps has seen the orders flood in.
He credits his success to what he calls the “wow factor”: the way people react when they see an abundance of brightly coloured flowers. Many immediately take out their mobile phones and post pictures to social media, a factor Deschamps says has helped to create a buzz around his work.
“I think if I had been doing this 30 years ago, we wouldn't have had the same success,” he says.
“Everyone has their phone in their pocket, everyone can take a picture, everyone can post, everyone can share. And then it snowballs.”
His designs are prepared in advance in his workshop and take about a day to install in place. Thanks to the weatherproof fabric used, they can stay up for months at a time without losing their colour.
“We are environmentally responsible,” he insists, brushing aside complaints that his flowers are made of plastic.
“We take down our decorations, take the flowers apart, wash them, dye them and reuse them in new designs,” Deschamps says.
He says that all the effort is worth it for the final result: “What makes me happy is to see people with a smile, to see customers enjoying our decorations.”
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