Inspired by the poppy thread, I thought I'd ask if anyone is familiar with any historical, social, professional or other interesting significance that attaches to wearing any particular variety or color of flower as a boutoneire...
connotations of various flowers as boutoneires
cpac
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Yes, but you got the title correct. Kudos.
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This is from The Encyclopedia of Men's Clothes:
Boutonniere is aflower for the buttonhole of the left lapel. English dandies known as "Macaronis" started the tradition of wearing flowers in the late 1700's. They got their name from the pasta they ate on grand tours of Italy, where they discovered the fashion innovations they brought back to England.
The song "Yankee Doodle" makes reference to Americans thinking that putting feathers in their caps would get them onto best dressed lists.
There is another story that when Prince Albert arrived in England in 1840, to marry Queen Victoria, she gave him a tiny bouquet of flowers. The Prince, noted for his charming little courtesies, took a penknife from his pocket, cut a hole in the lapel of his coat and inserted the flowers. Prince Albert had his tailor make them in all his suit jackets thereafter!
By 1865 most suit and sport jackets were tailored with a "flower hole" in the left lapel, which also included a loop of thread behind the lapel to hold the flower or a tiny glass vase.
A small, sturdy flower is required. You don't want it "clown" size, nor do you want it to disintegrate while wearing. A bridegroom usually picks a flower from his bride's bouquet, and extreme social etiquette dictates a choice from only four "correct" flowers: a blue cornflower, red or white carnation, or a gardenia.
An historical note: Oscar Wilde wore a green carnation as a sign in Victorian times that he was homosexual!
Also in "Flower Power" under the Lifestyle articles linked from the Home page is a section on what different Flowers mean.
Lovers using flowers to send send each other "secret" messages dates back to Victorian England where romantic significance was given to specific blossoms.
Boutonniere is aflower for the buttonhole of the left lapel. English dandies known as "Macaronis" started the tradition of wearing flowers in the late 1700's. They got their name from the pasta they ate on grand tours of Italy, where they discovered the fashion innovations they brought back to England.
The song "Yankee Doodle" makes reference to Americans thinking that putting feathers in their caps would get them onto best dressed lists.
There is another story that when Prince Albert arrived in England in 1840, to marry Queen Victoria, she gave him a tiny bouquet of flowers. The Prince, noted for his charming little courtesies, took a penknife from his pocket, cut a hole in the lapel of his coat and inserted the flowers. Prince Albert had his tailor make them in all his suit jackets thereafter!
By 1865 most suit and sport jackets were tailored with a "flower hole" in the left lapel, which also included a loop of thread behind the lapel to hold the flower or a tiny glass vase.
A small, sturdy flower is required. You don't want it "clown" size, nor do you want it to disintegrate while wearing. A bridegroom usually picks a flower from his bride's bouquet, and extreme social etiquette dictates a choice from only four "correct" flowers: a blue cornflower, red or white carnation, or a gardenia.
An historical note: Oscar Wilde wore a green carnation as a sign in Victorian times that he was homosexual!
Also in "Flower Power" under the Lifestyle articles linked from the Home page is a section on what different Flowers mean.
Lovers using flowers to send send each other "secret" messages dates back to Victorian England where romantic significance was given to specific blossoms.
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For a bit on floriography, you might want to take a look at
https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A5268035
And for specific symbolism, this site should help:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A5268035
And for specific symbolism, this site should help:
Pretty boys, witty boys,
You may sneer
At our disintegration.
Haughty boys, naughty boys,
Dear, dear, dear!
Swooning with affectation...
And as we are the reason
For the "Nineties" being gay,
We all wear a green carnation.
-from 'Bittersweet', by Noel Coward - which sly referred to The Green Carnation (1894), which itself in turn was a thinly-disguised contemporary novelisation of the affair between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas. A review of the novel additionally provides:
(https://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/fales/exhibits/wilde/0chamele.htm)
Lord Bosie was also a poet in his own right:
The Dead Poet (1901 - perhaps about Wilde's recent death?)
I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face
All radiant and unshadowed of distress,
And as of old, in music measureless,
I heard his golden voice and marked him trace
Under the common thing the hidden grace,
And conjure wonder out of emptiness,
Till mean things put on beauty like a dress
And all the world was an enchanted place.
And then methought outside a fast locked gate
I mourned the loss of unrecorded words,
Forgotten tales and mysteries half said,
Wonders that might have been articulate,
And voiceless thoughts like murdered singing birds.
And so I woke and knew that he was dead.
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Then you've never been to any major city on St. Patrick's Day. In New York on March 17th there are green carnations everywhere!
Joe
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And here I was thinking they were shamrocks all these years.
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Wearing such flowers on Mother's Day is also a longstanding tradition in many southern states. My dad still practices this on those Sundays.
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