We would argue that, of all flowers, the anthurium — the heart-shaped flower that became especially popular this year and can be seen everywhere from Glossier’s New York showroom to FKA Twigs’s earlobe — is the perfect candidate for buying faux instead of fresh. It’s a waxy, vaguely suggestive bloom that costs some $20 per fresh stem, and looks fake to begin with, which is kind of part of its appeal: The alien anthurium will always look more at home in a tin can Freakebana arrangement than it would in, say, a Mason jar of wildflowers.
In the last couple of months, two major retailers began selling faux anthurium stems. West Elm teamed up with cool New York florist Metaflora, whose clients include Lower East Side restaurant Dimes, Rachel Comey, and Creatures of the Wind, to create a plastic and iron wire bouquet of three gradient anthuriums arranged in front of a giant, splayed palm leaf. The anthurium bouquet is one of five faux bouquets that Metaflora designed for the retailer: There’s also a faux orchid and palm arrangement, one with banana leaves and protea, another with dried red banksia and ostrich feathers, and a fifth with brown banksia and wheat and tufts of grass. For something simpler (and less expensive), Urban Outfitters is selling three bright-red anthurium stems for $15. They’re slightly less realistic-looking, which, in this case, doesn’t matter much at all.
Some other excellent non-anthurium faux flowers
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