Hello, friends.
Hi! I'm Anne Dickson, creator of Fox and the Fleur. This is my first blog entry. So welcome to the Fox and the Fleur blog. I intend for this to be a place where I can share my love of flowers, but also of all things beautiful. A creative space to share inspirational design and beauty, whether out in nature or inside the home. I also want it to be a place to offer my personal reflections, observations and questions about the exceptional and the ordinary moments in life. I have always been a deeply curious person and it brings me great joy to share that inquisitive nature.
I want to tell you a little about how this whole flower journey started for me, as again, I am curious about how our choices in life lead us on different paths. After graduating from Denison University, I followed my love of design to NYC, where I was days away from starting a Masters program of Interior Design at Pratt Institute. I had interned in the Marketing Department of Tommy Hilfiger the summer prior and a full-time position happened to become available. My friend encouraged me to apply on a whim, as a "why not! this is every girls dream!." I remember staying up all night writing an essay that went along with the application. I remember the 25 outfits on the floor the night before, and my trembling hands opening the doors to Tommy's Corporate Headquarters on 39th street. I worked for Tommy for two years and learned more than I ever had at any job. Traveled all over the country, met Beyonce, partied in Miami, hung out with Karl Lagerfeld, attended the fashion week shows, and many other things far less glamorous. I eventually left Tommy and took a job at Dolce & Gabbana. Here I serviced magazine editors, learning how to curate looks and hob-knob with some of the most interesting and well-known industry leaders.
It was all so wonderful. And glamourous. And exhausting.
Five months after my wedding and five days after my 26th Birthday, my dad died of sudden heart failure. One day he was here, the next day he was gone. It rocked my world. Andrew and I moved home quickly to care for my mom and escape the grind of New York CIty. We bought a quiet house on the park with a big front porch and settled into a new life together. After a brief stint at a Marketing Agency, I became the Director of Marketing and Development for Propel Schools, a non-profit charter school . My dad had been on the Board of Directors and it was the perfect blend of mission driven work and deep sense of connection for me. I was there for six years, through the birth of my second son.
This is where the flowers come in.
Andrew and I moved to a seven acre farmhouse in Indiana Township with our son George (not yet 2) and welcomed our son Foster months later. An idyllic pastoral setting complete with a barn and a tractor. Life looked magical on the outside, but I was deeply lonely, isolated and terrified on the inside. As a mother of two under two, alone in all this new space, with no community and no longer in the professional world that I was so familiar with. Author Glennon Doyle puts it best when she writes, " It’s far too much and not even close to enough.”
In this way, flowers really found me. At what was possibly the most challenging, loneliest time for me, I discovered the healing hands of nature. Something bigger than myself put me right there, right then. I spent my days with my babies, wandering the garden and the woods, cutting flowers, weeds, branches. I felt alive and awake. I was satisfying a part of myself that I had stuffed away. I made arrangements and dropped them at the doorsteps of my friends, wanting to share beauty with the people that I love. Friends and family started asking me to put things together for a dinner party, a book club, a loved one. And hence, Fox and the Fleur came into full bloom. Organically, passionately and from a place of purpose.
I hope that you join me in this quest for truth. Looking deep inside to find and share the many gifts within.
