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Mother's Day Issue

We Heart This: Lewis Miller's Flower Flashes

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Last month, as New York was deep in lockdown, an extraordinary thing happened on the corner of 58th Street and 10th Avenue, not far from Mount Sinai West Hospital: a towering bouquet of lilacs and cherry blossoms seemingly sprouted overnight in a beat-up trash can. The scene was straight out of a fairytale, a garden oasis in the middle of a grim and near-empty city.

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Blink. Pinch. This was no mirage.

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It was a Flower Flash by event designer Lewis Miller, who's known for his pop-up floral installations, using upcycled blooms, in the most curious of urban areas—from subway stations to litter bins.

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“People are craving a larger-than-life symbol of hope, joy and nature,” Miller tells us. “Being able to create a Flower Flash for people to see from their apartment windows, from across the street, gives me a feeling of joy and, I think, gives other New Yorkers a feeling of hope. As long as there is life and there are flowers, there will be Flower Flashes—quarantine or not.”

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If you missed the moment—or live elsewhere—we bring good news: You can have your very own Miller-curated floral spectacle, whatever your zip code. He sells special Flower Flash Boxes, each part of a limited-edition series that comes complete with how-to video instructions—that's Veronica Swanson Beard's Mother's Day box above. You can shop them here, then follow him @lewismillerdesign to track his next guerrilla-style street installation.

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Above: Veronica Swanson Beard's Flower Flash Box—the before and after; below, from left: Lewis Miller's Flower Flashes on New York's Upper West Side, July 2019, and at a Midtown East installation, February 2019

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