Crossley describes this arrangement as “an ombré peony river running down the table.” To create the effect, she clustered together numerous little milk bottles.
Although she grew up surrounded by nature, the fortuitously named Crossley had no childhood aspirations to work with flowers. Her early years were spent in rural Wales with what she describes as “rugged wildness and huge sweeping landscapes” outside and flowers on every surface inside. (Her mother, artist Kate Corbett-Winder, wrote for Vogue, penned books on interior design, and was—and still is, says Crossley—a keen gardener with the greenest of thumbs and the longest, most enviable flower borders.) After she earned a degree in fashion journalism at London’s University of the Arts, she did stints at magazines and started her own blog, which initially covered fashion as well as a myriad of domestic crafts.
Photo by Emma Mitchell
Crossley favors big bunches of tulips in vintage jugs and old ceramic cachepots, not a few singular stems dotted around.
Crossley enjoys presenting gifts of anemone varieties in jewel-toned brush pots handmade by Bridie Hall.
Crossley says that the choice of recycled blue-glass medicine bottles in this vignette is as important as the sculptural lupines
Within the pages of her latest title, Flourish, published by Kyle Books in 2016 (that’s three books and three boys in barely five years), Crossley channels the mother-of-all-British-floral-stylists Constance Spry, sharing her passion for using humble, unconventional containers such as scientific beakers, milk churns, and olive oil tins with practical tips for fashioning easy, no-cost, watertight liners, for example.
The hollyhocks take centerstage in this feminine grouping
Also following in Spry’s footsteps, Crossley completed her most dramatic retail shop window installation to date—a country carnival–themed display with life-size carousel horses made of roses, foxgloves, carnations, delphiniums, peonies, and more. Created with set designer Angus Buchanan as part of the alternative spring floral art show, Chelsea in Bloom, the project required Crossley to work with more restrictions than she’s accustomed to and to run ideas by a cast of organizers. But in the end, the fanciful vignette—with its vintage, candy-colored palette—won the 2016 People’s Champion Award. The experience may be a harbinger of new projects to come: “I don’t like to get bored,” she says. “I’m always on to the next thing!”
By Courtney Barnes | Photography by Emma Mitchell
