Bouquet "La Loïe"

Picture a dark stage in Paris in the 1890s. Beneath it, a pane of glass and a red lamp. On it, a woman in a plain white dress, holding hundreds of yards of silk on bamboo wands. Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries begins. She steps onto the glass, the hem seems to catch fire, and the flames climb the silk.

This was Loïe Fuller's Fire Dance. She had never been taught to dance; she invented the costume, the stage and the lighting herself, and patented them. The writer Jean Lorrain said she stood in blazing embers and did not burn, that she was herself a flame. Toulouse-Lautrec and Mucha drew her, and at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris she had a theatre of her own.

This exotic flower bouquet is her dress on fire. White gladioli with ruffled edges for the silk; orange strelitzia for the rising flames; love-lies-bleeding amaranth spilling down like embers; bear grass curving through the air like her wands.

It is a tall bouquet, so use a tall, heavy vase. The gladioli often arrive still closed and open at the recipient's, from the bottom up, like a dress unfurling.

For a birthday with the music turned up too loud to talk, or a friend who treats every room as a stage.

Delivered in Paris, Monday to Saturday; delivery is free from €100.

Some flower substitutions may occur if we find that the quality of the delivered blooms isn't up to our standards, but the overall color palette and style will remain intact.