Nobody connects the beauty of flowers and design in such a special way as Mark Colle. The Antwerp-based flower artist has already worked with the crème de la crème of the fashion and design world, and that has everything to do with his obvious talent for improvisation. We let Colle unleash his creativity on five pieces from Serax's vase collection. “I work very intuitively. If I start to doubt, then it may not be right."
During those two years of living in the USA, Colle surrounds himself with genuine free-thinkers who strengthen him in his rebellion. In 2023 he recorded his life motto which he acquired in Baltimore in the Belgian press (Knack): “If all else fails, read the manual”. In other words, try it your own way and don't overthink things. With this rebellious attitude, Colle starts up his own business in 2007 called Baltimore Flowers, located near the Graanmarkt in Antwerp. He does so without having any secure start-up capital at hand or ever having lived in Antwerp. At one point, even the electricity is cut off because he spent his budget on orchids. But all's well that ends well. In the meantime, Baltimore Flowers is an icon of the fashion city and far beyond.
For him, the vases are literally and figuratively the basis of his work. “The vase can be a source of inspiration but, above all, it is an important part of the composition that cannot be underestimated,” he says. These compositions are always lush, wild and graceful. The understated, natural shapes of the vases by Serax designers LIZ.objets, Ruben Deriemaeker, Marie Michielssen and Piet Boon not only inspire him to make such arrangements, they add an extra serving of elegance to the whole. And they form the quiet base, like the foot of a fire-spewing volcano.
“My job is to convey emotions using flowers. In my work, however, you cannot retain that emotion for long because the flowers will be gone in no time. I find that so interesting. Short-lived emotions that you can grab hold of and let go again."
Mark Colle's life journey reads like improvisational theatre and intuition is also paramount in his work. We experience this during our collaboration, for which Colle gets to work with five vases from Serax’s rich collection. “I need a constant flow of creativity and spontaneity,” he says. “So, I act very intuitively and respond to the situation at hand. Flowers are transient, and that helps. It means there's no time to dwell on what you're doing."
Exquisite chaos is how Mark Colle describes his assignment for Dior in 2012 during an interview in the renowned fashion magazine Dazed & Confused. Already back then, the Belgian stirred the international press by collaborating with fashion giants Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten and Raf Simons. Others like Prada and Louis Vuitton followed.
It is not without reason that we begin this piece with the words ‘exquisite chaos’. They sum up Mark Colle's work and life very well. Young Colle turns out to be an enfant terrible who leaves high school at the age of fifteen and ends up working in a local flower shop in Ghent through a somewhat accidental path. Gradually, he becomes fascinated by the flower arrangements. 2003 becomes a pivotal point in his life. In that year, his eye falls on a job vacancy at a florist in the city of Baltimore in the United States and he leaves on an adventure without hesitation.
Mark Colle is a creator of contrasts: light versus dark, order versus chaos and energy versus melancholy. When we ask for his inspiration, these contrasts emerge in his answer. For example, he finds the 1977 horror classic Suspiria as inspiring as the clumsy TV series Nonkels. That's what makes his work so layered. His flowers express classical music and techno at the same time. Colle is, therefore, a genuine free-thinker with an open mind. But for him, the ultimate beauty of flowers lies in the essence of the flower itself: the transience. “My job is to convey emotions using flowers. In my work, however, you cannot retain that emotion for long because the flowers will be gone in no time. I find that so interesting. Short-lived emotions that you can grab hold of and let go again.
Despite the rather well-behaved image of the floral design, Colle's work is always rebellious, as if the bouquet were about to explode from energy. Of course, that has to do with Colle's talent for orderly chaos. And for colour. “Colour is a great source of inspiration and perhaps what attracts me most in this profession”, he tells us. What is striking is the way Colle also uses dark colours. They create minute, shaded areas, giving the whole thing a picturesque feel. Colle: “The dark flowers add a certain melancholy to the whole”.
