The New Flower Trend: LEGO?
LEGOs are more than a pastime; they are a creative endeavor. Anyone can style any set as an imaginary world or an artistic ornament. LEGOs are an aesthetic, and a lifestyle. The Danish company has touched many different media properties throughout its years, from DC and Marvel to Harry Potter and Star Wars, and created some new ones like Ninjago and Legends of Chima, but the company’s roots lie in making “unthemed” replicas of real-life environments and buildings. Their Architecture and Art lines are the quintessential representation of the brand’s potential as an A.D.I.M.W.E.A.K., also known as an artistic decorative imaginary miniature world-building assembling entertainment kit. The company can design toys, but they can do much more than that, and really, the more artsy themes I have mentioned are just touching the surface. A brand new example of LEGOⓇ’s foray into this world of home decor statuettes is their recent LEGOⓇ Flower Bouquet and LEGOⓇ Bonsai Tree sets from the Creators collection.
(This will be a short article, but please count how many times I write “collection,” “set,” and LEGO. Right out of the bat, I can tell you it’s many).
The Botanical Collection is one of the first of its kind for the company. If you own a LEGO, chances are you have already built small flowers and trees before, albeit with a few pieces, adjusted to make them fit the size of the set. But models made to replicate the scale of real flowers as buildable sets are truly something unique. The 756-piece bouquet set includes many botanical genus and families from snapdragons (cool name for a flower), roses (classic), and poppies (opioid-free), to daisies (very delicate), and asters (daisies again?) and can be arranged based on the personal preferences of the owner, especially as the stems are length-adjustable and the petal-pieces are of different colors altogether. But if you want, you can buy red roses and tulips separately from the main set for that romantic date gift (for those LEGO lovers, of course). And the 878-piece bonsai tree set is a twist on the millennial practice of pruning and shaping the small specimen, offering a challenging experience for customers, and features two optional leaf colors: perennial green and cherry blossom pink. It also comes with instructions for both a rectangular pot and a display wood stand so the whole ~bonsai aesthetic~ is achieved to its fullest.
LEGOⓇ designed this collection with adults as their target audience in mind. In their official press release, they mention their 2020’s global LEGO Play Well Study as a source of inspiration, seeing that 73% of the adults that answered the survey mentioned they look for ways to distress weekly, and that 81% of them said that playing with LEGOs helps them achieve a level of relaxation; all as a trend created by the pandemic. In other words, LEGOⓇ understood the importance of their brand, the current consumer environment, and the engagement that their sets have with their customers, including older LEGO lovers. Thus, it makes sense as to why LEGO decided to lean into activities that are naturally relaxing outside their LEGO form like picking flowers to display in one’s house, or cutting and caring for a bonsai. As design lead of the LEGO group, Jamie Berard, expressed in the press release, “as adults look for new ways to switch off and relax, we’re delighted to be able to help them seek solace from their busy everyday lives as they immerse themselves in creating these beautiful botanical builds.”
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Something interesting to note is that within collections with VIDIYO and Hidden Side, LEGOⓇ has been diving into creating lots of different original set themes that make use of AR components, providing an immersive experience for kids to blend concrete built environments with superimposed digital characters. However, their first release of 2021 stirs technological innovation to the opposite direction, one that focuses more on production since the flower bouquet and bonsai tree collection pieces are manufactured using sustainably sourced sugarcane as a basis for their bioplastic, showing the company’s ability to continually innovate and sell something for every kind of taste.
In the end, the Botanical collection is another aesthetic addition to LEGOⓇ’s assortment of artistically driven, adult-minded sets with decorative potential that serve as a fulfilling de-stressing activity for those LEGO builders who seek something different, and something beautiful and challenging at that.
If you want to snag the collection for yourself, you can go back to the text and click on “bouquet set” and “bonsai tree set.” At the time of this writing, all sets are sold out in the official website, but they are available to the public in other retail stores. And if you want to read more about them, check out this article.
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