09/18/2026
Now that it’s the final day of The Gilded Age tour at Filoli with Fleur de Ville, I wanted to mention some details especially to my new followers who found me from this show!
After receiving the email invitation to be apart of this show, i immediately binged The Gilded Age and loved every second. Since this was my first time being apart of Fleurs de Villes and being in the middle of wedding season, I was hoping for a gentleman. This didn’t prove as easy as I thought when I was assigned Monsieur Baudin, the not so French chef.
White clothing and an entire kitchen scene to plan out! So let’s talk about the details!
Starting with Monsieur himself: his coat and apron are made from a mix of corn husk and bleached aspidistra leaves with strawflower buttons. His chef hat is also made from bleached aspidistra and his hair is the center of a protea flower. His mustache is agonis glued to Ktape.
We also have an array of food and kitchen items. My goal was to look through the entire display and find hidden gems and surprise moments like the eggs and apples in the produce basket as well as a copper pot boiling over on the stove.
For the floral display, I leaned in to his story and telling it using the Victorian Language of Flowers. *warning* if you haven’t seen the show, there are spoilers below!!
Monsieur Baudin, it turns out, has created his French identity to get placement in a high society house, which he achieves with the Russel family, but as it turns out he is from Kansas. He is also has a love story with another character that cannot be for various reasons.
While thinking about the design, I looked up flowers that represented lies and deceit. It turned out there was a yellow theme to those flowers which went well with Kansas’ state flower, the sunflower which featured prominently in my design. Other flowers include alstromeria, snap dragon, roses, calla lilies, lemon leaf and huckleberry.
For his love story, I discovered that when you have some a solid color carnation and a striped carnation, it symbolizes a love that cannot be. Red tulips indicate an honest declaration of feelings.