A new coffee table book from Charlotte Moss (this is her eleventh), interior designer, collector and taste arbiter, is always warmly anticipated. Her just published book, Charlotte Moss Flowers, provides yet another reason to fall in love with these beauties all over again…to marvel at their exquisiteness, to be inspired by arrangements that show them off to perfection.

The timing is perfect, too, now that the pandemic has prompted an awareness of the therapeutic benefits of gardens and the great outdoors. Bringing the garden indoors is the obvious next step.

So pour yourself a cup of tea and start with her “flower memories;” it will immediately transport you to happy times and pleasurable thoughts that are always associated with these glorious additions to everyday living. As she says so clearly in this inscription, “how would we live without them?”

You’ll find many reasons to keep returning to Charlotte Moss Flowers, but one that resonates for me? This book reads as a kind of memoire told in flower-related anecdotes. How delicious! (I’m also very envious that all these yummy images have been taken by Charlotte). But again it is also a celebration of Charlotte’s artistry…both an interiors book enhanced with the glorious additions of flower arrangements

as well as a flower book with backdrops that embrace a life well lived. Every reader will feel at home here; even a novice will come to appreciate the vision of a single stem, which becomes a “specimen” in the right container, adding its charm to the corner of any room. From porcelain clematis to baskets of lilacs, from magenta tulips to blousy apricot roses, each is shown off to perfection in the joy filled interiors of both her city and country homes as well as those of her fortunate clients.

Further inspiration is provided in the chronicles of past tastemakers…Lee Radziwill, Bunny Mellon, C.Z. Guest, and Pauline de Rothschild, to name just a few. Each with their own style that became their “flower signature,” as well as making another case for flowers as scrumptious additions to everyday living.

If you’re still longing for more Charlotte Moss style, check out her vase (of course!) collaboration with her stepson, James Friedberg (the glass container pictured behind the tub is one of his creations)…

and the metal-crafted “Flowers of the Month” pairing with Tommy Mitchell (available at Bergdorf Goodman). 

Many happy memories came flooding back, as I absorbed every detail on every page, of six idyllic days spent with Charlotte and Margot Shaw (Editor-in-Chief of Flower magazine) on our English gardens trip in 2015…sharing her homage to Nancy Lancaster, comparing garden notes, her enlightening cocktail presentation at Ditchley in Oxfordshire,

and attending the Chelsea Flower Show (don’t miss the brief tale of her first outing, many years ago, to this celebrated English event; page 16).

The experts will always say that “it’s about training your eye”…and if you love the garden’s finest, there’s no better place to start than with Charlotte Moss Flowers. Many mercis, Charlotte, for my copy…