Setting the scene
Peering through the gate that opens onto Tamsin Scott’s cottage in the seaside town of
Rye in Sussex, I imagine the star of a period drama, trailing skirts swishing as she makes her way up the garden path. Barely contained planting cascades across flagstones: a froth of snapdragons, lupins and lavender. The effect, says Tamsin, is the quintessence of English gardening; ‘rambling, luxuriant, a little eccentric’.
Tamsin knows about these things. As the floral designer behind Amazon’s genre-fluid and director Autumn de Wilde’s macaroon-hued, her job is to ensure that the flora is narrative appropriate. A hothouse lily for Jane Austen’s ‘aspirational’ Emma, and ‘over-the-top cascades of wild roses’ for Elle Fanning as Catherine the Great. ‘Flowers,’ she says, ‘can tell their own quiet story.’
