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Dear friends, In Japan, you can sometimes tell a shop has just opened from halfway down the street. The giveaway is the flowers. Tall arrangements stand outside the door, each with a sign bearing the sender’s name. Even if you’re only passing by, you might slow down for a look. Hmm, what’s opening here? This October, I made a two-tier flower stand for an opening in Tokyo. The sender was overseas and couldn’t be there in person. They asked for yellow and blue, the owner’s favorite colors. From across the street, I imagine it was the yellow that caught people’s eye. For the owner, those colors held a little more. Someone had remembered. And those flowers by the door were a way of saying, I’m rooting for you from here. Making it got me curious about how long flowers have been announcing openings in Japan. In 1924, a family workshop in Osaka began making artificial flowers for hanawa (花輪), large floral wreaths used for occasions including shop openings. I like to think someone walking down an Osaka street a hundred years ago might have paused for exactly the same reason. Around Nagoya, some shopkeepers even invite neighbors to take a stem home. The sooner the stand empties, the better the omen for business. As a florist who spends quite a bit of time deciding where each stem should go, I’m rather charmed by the idea of everyone happily taking it apart. Usually, when I send flowers on someone’s behalf, I tuck their words into an envelope. With an opening stand, the congratulations face the whole street. And yet my favorite part of this one was the little message you could walk right past unless you knew why the flowers were yellow and blue. 道を歩く人には「あ、ここに新しいお店ができたんだ」と知らせてくれる、開店祝いの花。あの黄色と青には、贈った方と受け取った方だけにわかる、小さなメッセージが込められていました。 Warmly,
Sumika
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