Art school grads Erin Heath and Rose Mattos met designing eye-catching displays for Anthropologie. The two friends have since specialized in a different kind of arrangement as the owners of Somerville’s Forêt Design Studio, founded six years ago. “At the time, we couldn’t find a florist in the city that was really exploring how to arrange in a way that felt like the flowers were still growing,” Heath explains. “And bringing in more than just flowers. … How do we bring in fruits and vegetables and herbs and other things that tell more of a story?”

Their flair for storytelling was on full display at a recent wedding at the Boston Public Library. “The room was like a deep scarlet red with murals all around. They had their long tables pushed together, so it looked like a banquet hall. We had LED taper candles with these lush cascading arrangements in rich jewel tones and wine tones, and we had cloches and figs and plums that were cut open,” Heath recalls. “It felt special because the client was a foodie and wanted everything to have this still-life feeling that really fit the room. It felt like you were in a different time and place. You might bring a dagger or someone might poison your wine.” 

Heath tapped a similar color palette for this arrangement inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice,
a riff on the Greek myth about the musician who travels to the underworld to rescue his bride, only to lose her by looking back over his shoulder just before she crosses into the land of the living. “Obviously this is a tragic love story,” Heath says. “But I liked being able to play with that contrast of love and loss of love.”

Orpheus & Eurydice

by Forêt Design Studio

1. “I put these tiny pomegranates in there to symbolize Persephone’s appearance in this story, because it’s she and Hades who give Orpheus permission to try to swoop his wife out of the underworld.”

2. “This pitcher plant variety is sarracenia, also called trumpet pitchers,” Heath says, noting that the way the carnivorous plant entraps its prey reminds her of the tunnel where Eurydice’s fate is sealed. 

3. “It feels like a landscape of both living and decaying materials that are kind of cut open,” Heath says. “These fruits are exposed; their seeds are exposed. It feels very vulnerable.” 

Say It with Flowers: Orpheus & Eurydice by Forêt Design Studio | Mother Earth & Father Sun by Wildfolk | Sleeping Beauty by Pollen Floral Design | Ladyhawke by Fleur Events