Outlet Moorcroft Orinoco Flow Vase 120/16 – Number 1 of 15 Moorcroft

Moorcroft Orinoco Flow Vase 

2024 Irresistible Iris’s Collection

Senior Designer: Rachel Bishop BA (hons)

Highly sought after Number One Vase!!

Shape: 120/16 

Dimensions: H 42.5 x W 15 x D 15cm

Without doubt, this design could be said to be Rachel Bishop’s finest floral design of all time. In much the same way as Enya’s Orinoco Flow, released in 1988, created an utterly new music style, which is characterized by slow rhythm, layering of harmonies, and simple lyrics with an ethereal quality, Orinoco Flow holds an avalanche of soft colours, layered in part to add depth, and holds you utterly beguiled. The prestigious ceramic vase is, however, named after the Orinoco Flow iris which was exhibited at the International Iris Competition in Florence, winning the Giardino di Collodi cup in 1992.

Iris ‘Orinoco Flow’ bursts into centre stage, erupting with glaucous green leaves and stems stylised in Art Nouveau ribbons and curves as a tidal wave of no less than six white flowers, showcasing standards and falls finely speckled with violet, a beard white, tipped zany-orange, and bordered with violet. In terms of colour and form choreography, the design is flawless.

Bred by Cy Bartlett, one of The West and Midlands Iris Group’s outstanding iris growers with three Dykes Medals to his credit, Cy also received numerous awards in the UK, USA and Florence. President of the BIS 1997 to 2000.

Irresistible Irises – A Golden Year

The world of irises is like no other with iris varieties range in height from 6 inches to a phenomenal, 4 feet! These perfect perennial blooms often come in complex combinations as well as varied colours, with white, purple and yellow being the most common – the latter causing names to emanate from a strange variety of sources due to the sheer multitude of yellow hues, with the design Canary Girls being testament to this fact. Some irises bloom in colours so dark that the flowers appear jet-black. In the world of Moorcroft, as we say good bye to our spring flowers, these early summer blooms fill the gap brilliantly with their rigid, upright habit and ruffly, complex blooms, just as they do in your gardens – unfolding and erupting in unimaginable colours and forms from the demure to jaw-dropping prestige vases.

To celebrate the 50^th anniversary of The West and Midlands Iris Group, the Moorcroft design team have created a collection of iris designs featuring varieties that have never been visited by Moorcroft underglaze before – some, like Rachel’s deeply spiritual Orinoco Flow holds an avalanche of colour and form, whilst all hold a palette that is utterly mesmerizing.  Most designs are named after the plants themselves which are in turn named after pivotal people in the Group’s fifty golden years. This is as it should be.