Bloom

The inspiration behind Bloom Book was the much-admired Bloom magazine founded in 1998 in Paris by Li Edelkoort to explore the fusion of plants and fashion. The concept behind both the magazine and the book puts the 'culture' into 'horticulture'. Flowers, vegetables and trees are an endless source of inspiration for design, fashion, cosmetics and cuisine, which in turn open new perspectives for our vision of the world of plants, more creative today than ever before.

From the symbolism of flowers to the seasonal cycles of death and rebirth, from homeopathic beauty treatments to edible blossoms, the plant kingdom is a starting point for much of human experience. Bloom explores these issues in a quest for a new understanding of nature: a return to our roots, allying the sap of life and the zest of human creativity to create a true Art Noveau.

Li Edelkoort calls herself a 'trend seeker'. Others see her as a guru of all things fashion and design. She moved from her native Netherlands to Paris in 1975, and never looked back. She is Director of the Design Academy in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, but it was in France that she launched her trend-watching magazines iNview (on design), View on Colour (fashion) and Bloom (plants and flowers).

Lisa White is American. She studied political science at Georgetown University and has been working with Li Edelkoort for over ten years. She is Editor-in-Chief of iNview, View on Colour and Bloom magazines, and was behind the Glassex design project that was shown in the Pompidou Center in Paris as well as in Milan and Cologne. She is a member of IDSland, a group at the forefront of new design research.