Who better than the actor slash floral designer to showcase the vibrant new ’70s-era collection?
Words by ELIZABETH VARNELL
Photography by MARK GRIFFIN CHAMPION
Styling by REBECCA RUSSELL
A GUCCI chain shoulder bag, $2,980, and hobo bag, $2,400 — both featuring archival KEN SCOTT prints — mingle with fresh seasonal blooms in COUNTY LINE FLORALS’ VW delivery truck, Betty.
In the 1960s and ’70s, American designer Ken Scott spent a protracted stint in Milan. Florals and botanicals were a constant presence in his work and his life — he was nicknamed “the gardener of fashion”; he tended lush rooftop gardens at his house in Milan and fragrant fruit trees on the terraces of his French Riviera escape; and he covered the textiles he created with bold, large-scale flowers.
Alessandro Michele, creative director of Gucci, has looked to those prints for a capsule range within his latest Resort collection. In fact, the era is one he often looks to for inspiration. “The period of greatest liberation, which I lived through when I was a child, was the ’70s, which were really the golden years of the brand I work for, and I keep going back to them because, for me personally, they were the real seeds of change,” he notes.
The patterns — sourced from Italian luxury fabric maker Mantero’s Ken Scott archives — make their way onto silk scarves, shirt dresses, evening gowns, fleeces, velvet blazers and down jackets. And who better than actor turned floral entrepreneur Abigail Spencer to try them on for size?
ABIGAIL SPENCER wears a GUCCI coat, $5,500, and hat, $615. JACQUIE AICHE ring, $1,650.
“Great fashion takes its cues from nature”
Abigail Spencer
Spencer’s pandemic pivot led to County Line Florals, a Los Angeles-based flower delivery service awash in the sort of blooms Michele mined for his new Epilogue capsule collection. “I understand Ken Scott’s constant and continual inspiration,” she says. “Great fashion takes its cues from nature, and what’s more inspiring than the earth laughing in flowers?”
GUCCI dress, $3,800, vest, $1,500, chain shoulder bag, $2,980, and hobo bag, $2,400. ALEXANDRA JULES earrings, $1,600.
Spencer named her company after one of the breaks favored by her father, pro surfer Yancy Spencer, and stocks her mobile flower stand — a 1965 VW Transporter pickup truck nicknamed Betty — with an eclectic mix of oversize botanicals for home delivery and special events. As she preps to debut County Line Floral’s first retail incarnation (including a Florista Bar, plant garden and design studio) this spring at Free Market in Playa Vista, next to C Magazine’s Studio C boutique, she adds, “It’s also so sweet to be at the epicenter of bringing joy.” countylineflorals.com; gucci.com.
GUCCI dress, $3,800, chain shoulder bag, $2,980, hobo bag, $2,400, and horse-bit top-handle bag, $2,500.
Fashion Image: GUCCI coat, $5,500, and hat, $615.
This story originally appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of C Magazine.
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