Jim Lauderdale in Dandy & Rose snowdrop shirt. Photograph by Scott Simontacchi.
Once, many, many years ago, a suitor asked me what my favourite flower was, and promised to present me with a bouquet of whatever I chose. I am always truthful, so I told him that I love snowdrops. It was June.
Nevertheless, the gallant young fellow sent to some swanky London florist and a few days later, he presented me with a tiny bunch of exactly the flower I had asked for. It really didn’t help his case, to be honest, and, now that I am no longer young and careless, I feel a twinge of guilt every time I remember the lengths he went to, and how fruitless were his efforts .
I still look forward every year, once Christmas is over, to the moment when the small clump of snowdrops in my garden blooms. I love to see them bravely nodding their tiny white heads, hiding their freshly green-splashed faces as if they don’t quite want to look at the still-grim Ja
nuary sky.
And right on cue, they have arrived this year, just as I finished this shirt, commissioned by Jim Lauderdale, in Liberty’s graceful art nouveau snowdrop print, based on an 1896 print from their archive.
Any minute now, Spring will be here. I just know it.
Dandy & Rose 