If even your mom didn’t send you a Valentine and the forecast threatens rain for the weekend, what better way to raise your spirits than with a wearable bunch of flowers. From muzzily out-of-focus to sharply graphic, all kinds floated down the international catwalks in the spring ’08 shows. Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, and Stella McCartney (who stitched up dreamy, long boho dresses in wildflower prints) were just some of the names playing around with buds and petals.

Local designers have latched on to the trend too. Vancouver-based Melissa Taylor gives a nod to her birthplace—Deming, Washington state—with her label, Love, Deming, which she attaches to her airy Tannis dress in white organic cotton voile wreathed with pink, turquoise, and caramel-coloured blooms. The line is sold at Eugene Choo (3683 Main Street) and Organix (1812 Boatlift Lane, Granville Island), as well as on her Web site (www.lovedemi.com/). (If her spring ’08 line isn’t on-line yet, it should be in a day or so.)

Meanwhile, Allison Smith of the Allison Wonderland label has turned out a breezy white cotton dress with stylized black tulips all over it ($174), a design clean enough to please even hard-core minimalists, who can find it at Dream (311 West Cordova Street), Hum (3623 Main Street), or Liquid (2050 West 4th Avenue).

House designer Claudia Agusti promises that scads more Vancouver-designed and -made styles are coming in to Plum (various locations) toward the end of the month, including graphic florals and plenty of garden colour, especially greens and yellows. I’d grab a dress already out there—in a burnt-out knit (it comes with a matching slip) in black with red or fuchsia roses and green leaves—because its noir background means easy-peasy accessorizing. Throw on a sweater or cardigan and boots, or tights and ballet flats, and do the sandals-and-bare-legs thing when the temperature climbs. Other need-to-knows: Empire line, sleeves just above the elbow, and a price tag of $89.

You could also waltz out of the fitting room and into the winter outdoors in a knee-length A-line skirt ($75, at Banana Republic [various locations]). Made from a black or espresso brown linen-blend, it’s printed with large-scale white flowers, leaves, and stems. Display staff had paired it with a Chanel-inspired white jacket and a black tank top, about as season-spanning a look as you can imagine.

Tristan (various locations) sells an equally versatile gently flared skirt in silky white fabric splashed from hem level up with large Claude Monet–style flowers in blue, grey, and black ($110). Anything with blue is big this spring, and you’ve got all those other neutrals to work with. Nearby, outlined in black, sky-blue and poppy-red flowers visually pop on a flared skirt in grey chiffon with a black-and-white horizontally striped lining ($95). The matching top, “lined” with its own black camisole, has a broad, black band outlining its square neck and a shirred waist ($85).

Never a label known for understatement, Guess (various locations) goes nuts with a seed-packet print of blossoms galore in pinky-purple, yellow, deep-orange, and green on sheer off-white fabric. Girlie in the extreme, the fluttery top laces up the front with cream satin ribbon, and features gathered short sleeves and neckline frills ($79). Wisely, the Guess display people have tamed it with jeans and a mid-thigh-length white jacket.

Even when they’re almost anime, as in the bold black rose-print white dress ($89.99) sold at Le Château (various locations), all-over florals may still be too girlie for you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t hitch a ride on this particular bandwagon. Also at Le Château are enormous pin-on pink roses ($9.95), either a retro look at Sex and the City the TV show, or a foretaste of Sex and the City the movie.

Speaking of accessories, the funkiest blooms in town are the flower-heeled Prada shoes at Holt Renfrew (737 Dunsmuir Street) in black paired with black satin or turquoise-and-green with beige ($930). Ralph Lauren does hot pink boudoir-evocative satin mules trimmed with roses ($425). Even wilder are the Sandro Botticelli–esque sandals from Italian designer René Caovilla, which have a gold band dotted with little peach-coloured roses ($895) that snakes up your lower leg. Fantasy prices and fantasy styles, but you can always just look. Wincing? Try Gap (various locations) for spring-trendy ballet flats in cotton printed with itsy-bitsy peach-pink flowers ($39.50), but do wait for some dry, sunny days to wear them.

Flowers and eco-friendliness go together. Melissa Blyth of local company GreenOne stitches capacious organic-cotton carry bags in neutral hues screened with brightly coloured flowers. They’re $39.95 on-line at www.greenoneventures.com/, or $42 at You and Whose Army (385 Water Street), Twigg & Hottie (3671 Main Street), m-Smart Design (925 Main Street, Park Royal South, West Vancouver), and other stores around town. Each bag holds up to 20 kilograms of groceries, and has handy end pockets for bunched lilies or Merlot bottles. At the end of its useful life it can go in the compost, just like real flowers.