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Sara Collinge of Flowers with Passion in Goosnargh was commissioned to design a “plant based” umbrella for a healthy eating campaign by Alpro. Featuring Una Healy (pictured left) from The Saturdays who as the face of Alpro’s campaign to encourage Brits to eat more plant based foods, the agency were looking for something that would link nature with their product.
“I got a phone call out of the blue from Alpro’s PR agency in London, initially asking if I could design a floral dress as they’d seen the one I made for Harrogate earlier this year. They then changed this to an umbrella and wanted a natural look using mostly garden foliage, tendrils and a touch of white and pale yellow flowers.” said Sara, 49, a Chelsea silver medallist who works as a freelance florist from her Goosnargh studio.
Sara had to make a mock up version and send pictures to Alpro to ensure they were happy with the design. She then had three days’ notice to complete the umbrella and get it down to London for the celebrity photo shoot held in a private house.
However whilst she knew the address she had no idea who the celebrity would be until Una arrived because it had been a closely guarded secret and was in fact Una’s first photo shoot since her marriage to rugby star Ben Foden.
“To the amazement of staff and guests we arrived at a London hotel at 12.30 am with buckets of foliage and flowers, plus the umbrella which by this time had its first covering of leaves! London was so hot I couldn’t leave the umbrella in the car or the leaves would have curled up and died. Thank goodness the room was air conditioned! We turned it down as low as we could and went to bed with lots of clothes on! After three hours sleep I was up at 5 am to finish the umbrella in the freezing cold hotel room.”
“I had no idea the umbrella would play such a pivotal part in the campaign. I’d just assumed it would be a prop in the background. So I was absolutely thrilled to watch Una modelling it and the photographs were superb.”
Sara Collinge models her brolly creation
