Valentine’s Day
This year Portafiori wants to celebrate some famous romantic couples. Along with some interesting information we discovered…
Romeo and Juliet
We honestly don’t know if this famous young couple made it to Valentine’s day but if they did, we know Romeo would have gone to one of the best flower shops in Verona to buy beautiful flowers for his love. Romeo and Juliet represent true love.
Anthony and Cleopatra
Every Valentine’s Day Mark Anthony filled Cleopatra’s bedroom with Lotus flowers gathered by his slaves from the Nile River. This famous couple stood for true passion.
Gertrude Stein And Alice Toalkis
We have it on the best authority that every Valentine’s day Gertrude went to the top Paris Florist to buy Alice 3 bunches of violets. How Romantic.
Liz Taylor and Richard Burton
We know Dick gave Liz the famous Krupp diamond what we don’t know is that every Valentine’s Day he filled her Hollywood Boudoir with tons of roses. What a glamorous couple!!!
Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas
Before their troubles began Oscar would give Bossie a large bouquet of green carnations every Valentine’s day. These boys had trouble ahead but when things were good they were very good.
We invite all of you lovers out there to send flowers to your loved ones this February 14th.
This is a day created for romance, and what is more romantic than sending beautiful flowers to your loved one?
Who doesn’t love flowers?!
So please call Portafiori flowers at 347 693 4556 or 212 620 4038 to place your order now.
Let us help you create a memorable Valentine’s Day.
Like an Oak Leaf
Do the rest of you feel the same way? Summer always goes by so quickly and then I feel like an oak leaf blown into the fall at high velocity.
But, think of what Elizabeth Lawrence said: “Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn”
Oh, if only we New Yorkers could follow this advice, we just seem to hustle and bustle around just to get irritated at the fall because it is the start of those dreaded Holidays!
As a florist the fall is an exciting time. It is a time of change.
It means the flower market will be filled with stunning fall flowers and foliage that create a beautiful new palette of colors to work with.
Albert Camus said: “Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.”
What a beautiful thought to see the foliage as a whole new garden we can use.
This is also a season where I can use fruit, nuts, berries and vegetables with the autumn flowers and rich foliage.
Fall is also the beginning of a new party season.
We start with the Jewish Holidays, fall get-togethers and of course Thanksgiving.
Here is a sampling of the work we have done for some fall events.
Don’t forget to call Portafiori when planning your fall event. We will not only be able to help you watch the leaves turn, we will bring them to your home and put them on your table!
Back on Broadway
It all started with the simple, humble mega-star - Dame Edna Everage.
When the Dame did her show, “Dame Edna Back with a Vengeance”, we were chosen to supply 800 gladiola a week for the show. You see, at the end of every show, Dame Edna throws 100 gladiola into the audience. She is known all over the world for her “gladdies” and we were lucky enough to supply them for the run of the show.
We did the flowers for the opening night party at Sardi’s, and I couldn’t help but pose next to the Dame:
This led to doing Guinevere’s wedding bouquet for the Broadway musical “Spamalot”. At the end of the show, Guinevere throws her wedding bouquet into the audience. We supplied one bouquet for each performance. The show ran for so long, that I began to think my grandchildren would be continuing this work. But all good things must come to an end.
The next show we did was a very exciting project. We were asked to do silk flowers for the Broadway musical “The Wedding Singer”. This is the first time I worked with Tony award winning set designer Scott Pask. The show took place in a New Jersey catering hall in the early 1980s. We had to do period flowers, which included lots of baby’s breath and Gerber daisies.
There were many different scenes that involved flowers, so it was a real challenge and one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had. The challenge with the flowers was, in some cases, that they had to be over-the-top and sometimes gaudy but still tasteful. For the finale of the show, Scott designed three three-foot hearts that we had to totally cover with silk roses which we embellished with sequins and rhinestones. And we were paid for this ! Who could ask for a more fun job?
I should also mention that in college I studied Costume Design and Art History, so I already had a good sense of what looked good on-stage and how to make the silk flowers look 3-dimensional and be seen from the audience.
I really enjoyed working with Scott, we communicated easily and soon it was almost as if we spoke the same language and understood each other.
Another we worked on together was “The Vertical Hour”, where we actually helped create a 30-foot tree that was essentially the focal point of the set.
We also worked on the play “November” with Nathan Lane where he played the President of the United States and the play was set in the Oval Office. My assistant, Kaz, had an entertaining experience having to do a silk arrangement on stage while the actors were rehearsing.
In the Tony award winning “Coast of Utopia”, designed by Scott, we created the birch branches that the cast held.
We also worked with Scott on the musical “Hair” for which we supplied 80 yellow and white daisy bouquets a week that the “hippies” tossed to the audience during the show. We did the last production and are now working on it again, now that it’s back on Broadway this summer – so we are really “Back on Broadway!”
Another project we worked on was “The Color Purple”. For the Broadway production and the tour, we created the purple silk wisteria vines that were a large part of the set. So we like to think that we put the “purple” in “The Color Purple”.
We also worked on the “The Norman Conquests” which was a production sent over from London. Some of the scenes took place in a garden, and we supplied fresh roses for the show on a weekly basis.
Another great experience was working on the Broadway production of “God of Carnage” for which we supplied 640 white tulips a week . This was a challenge because white tulips aren’t always in season and were an integral part of the set. So somehow, come hell or high water, we had to come up with hundreds of white tulips every week.
The most memorable flowers I ever did for Broadway was creating a large bouquet of roses presented to Patti LuPone for the closing performance of “Gypsy”.
That day “Everything was coming up Roses”… Who could ask for anything more?
Open for Business
Portafiori originally started as a store on 50th Street and 9th Avenue. We opened right before Valentine’s Day in January of 1991. Believe it or not, we didn’t have a credit card system and accepted checks for all our Valentine’s Day orders – and everyone paid, which gives you some faith in humankind.
Since we were a retail shop and a flower shop, we sold flower related items as well as cut flowers. Here are some examples of our window displays:
Spring:
Summer:
Autumn:
Winter:
This was our store cat Claudia, who always liked to get dressed up when customers came for a consultation.
Also, we did many parties and weddings out of the store. Here are the flowers for a party waiting to be delivered in front of the store:
What eventually happened was that even though it was my dream to have a flower shop, I found it difficult to balance the walk-in clientele and the party and wedding work. So, when our lease was up and the rent tripled, this gave me the impetus to move to a studio space. We have been working out of various studio spaces ever since. We are currently at 120 W. 28th Street between 6th & 7th Avenue in the flower district. It’s a wonderful location. About 75% of the tenants are florists, so we share walk-in refrigerators and public work space. It’s a fantastic environment. I finally feel like we’ve settled into a home.
Stormy Weather
While my staff and I enjoy our work with our regular customers and parties, it is fun to get out of the city once in a while, as we did when we recently had the opportunity to create arrangements for an engagement party at The Westchester Country Club: www.wccclub.org.
The day was cold, dark and stormy, with a howling wind and torrential rain later in the day. But, Portafiori brought spring inside the club. I wanted to create something young and fresh. I wanted to make the guests feel that they had walked into a spring meadow.
To do this we created little gardens of spring flowers in wooden crates, using wheat grass as a base for the table arrangements. I looked for flowers with the most interesting silhouettes, so the design would come from the shapes of the flowers working together.
The club is large, and I wanted to bring more flowers into the room to really make it feel like spring. The idea I came up with was to make the buffet table skirting a veritable field of flowers. We made little bouquets and pinned them to the skirting of the buffet tables. It really made an impact.
The linens I chose were cream, bright green, peach, and pale yellow. These colors made the bright flowers pop out.
The staff and Banquet Manager made the day a pleasure, they were very helpful.
The family of the bride and groom were very pleased with the décor. We received a nice compliment from the father of the bride-to-be when he told me that the people from an event next door were raving about our flowers!!! What a great compliment.
Where Did It All Start?
I am often asked when I became interested in floral design. Well… it started at a very early age. Here are some of my first attempts at decorating Christmas trees:
As the years progressed, so did my talent:
My father came from Czechoslovakia where he worked on a farm. We were always outdoors in gardens and parks, where he would teach me the varieties and names of the different plants and flowers. We made many, many trips to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which was not far from our home:
I truly began to see the beauty of plants and flowers on these visits to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden with my father, where he later ran the Children’s Garden for a few years. And now, I teach Floral Design in the Adult Education Department: www.bbg.org.
There were so many other things that attracted me to floral design. For instance, I love the fast pace and excitement of doing a party. After college, I started off in theater as a costume designer. Creating a wedding is very much like putting on a show. My background as a costume designer has made me sensitive to the unique needs of the brides I work with, just as I had to be sensitive to the needs of the characters and what they would wear in the plays I worked on.
What also added to my love of floral design is that my father would take me to flower shows:
I was always attracted to the beautiful displays. Even as a child, our home was filled with amateur flower arrangements – anywhere I could put them.
I also had a love for crafts, and at 10 years old, my Aunt Gina taught me how to make this bathroom decoration called “The Swan.” This included a small plastic swan placed on a bar of Lux soap, and adorned with pearls and silk flowers. Well, you can just imagine… I loved making them, and at the age of 10, convinced my father to take me to Macy’s where I sold two dozen to the fragrance department. My father told me that all but the yellow ones sold. Years later when I opened my business, I sold dried flower arrangements to another fragrance department at Henri Bendel:
I feel my life has come full circle, and flowers have always been on my path.
Birthday Party at the New York Athletic Club
These are photos from a party we just finished at the New York Athletic Club. This is how I came up with the concept for the decor. The theme was “Disco.” I felt the colors for the party should be black and silver with a touch of red. While searching the Wholesale Flower Market and Novelty Market for ideas I came upon these cute mini disco balls, which I thought would look wonderful in an arrangement of red roses. By attaching them to wires I wanted them to float above the arrangement like a kinetic sculpture.
Since my client lived out of town, the only way we could communicate was through email. This is the photo I sent which showed the red roses and the disco balls and I explained to her what I wanted to do:
The finished centerpiece:
The client wanted to give gifts to her guests, and we mulled over a lot of ideas. And then I thought of my next door neighbor, Paul Bildner, and his t-shirt printing company, City Dog: www.citydogny.com. Paul created these great t-shirts for the occasion:
To decorate the card table I thought it would be fun to have the poster from “Saturday Night Fever” and superimpose the birthday boy’s face onto the poster. It looked great:
On the card table we also put a large arrangement of red roses in a mirrored vase:
To complete the design, the linens were black shimmer, the chairs were silver ballroom with black cushions, we used sparkle bracelets as napkin rings, and added small mirrors around the centerpiece to add a little more shimmer. The party was a great success.
LOOKING BACK
At this time of the year it is great to look back to see what one has accomplished and what one is grateful for.
This last year has been filled with parties and special events. Some fun ones were:
Summer Party at The Knickerbocker Club, Summer 2010:
Miss Joan Rivers Thanksgiving, Fall 2010:
Flowers on Madison Avenue for de Grisogono Jewelers, Spring 2010:
Dinner party at The Century Club, Fall 2010:
French Heritage Society Dinner at The Metropolitan Club, Fall 2010:
We also had a terrific year in 2010 working on many Broadway shows. We supplied the tulips for the play “God of Carnage”, the daisies that the hippies handed out in the production of “Hair”, for which we also created a special bouquet for the number “Frank Mills”, and flowers for “The Norman Conquests” and “Promises, Promises”.
In 2009 we also had a wonderful experience. I was seen on television working with Miss Joan Rivers creating the decor for the final episode of “The Celebrity Apprentice” where she won. Another fun thing we did that year was create a money tree for the opening party for her TV show “How Did You Get So Rich?”
Another highlight was being featured in the Joan Rivers documentary, “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work”. You can see me when her dinner table is being prepared for Thanksgiving. It is shot from above and lasts for about two seconds, but that is me and one of my workers, Edvaldo. If you do buy the DVD, you can press the slow button and my section lasts for four seconds. I have become known as the fastest florist on the East Coast.
These are just a few of the jobs we worked on. It was a busy and very fulfilling year with a lot of great work and wonderful clients. A lot to be grateful for and a lot to look forward to in 2011.