Now, this one is a little more niche than our usual fare, and quite a bit more specialist. Vase fashion isn’t exactly a typical topic of conversation, it rarely even makes a showing on home decor blogs.
And yet, every home stylist that we know who is worth their salt carefully considers the build, material and contrast their vases create. So, we thought we’d dedicate a small blog to breaking down the components of a vase, what makes them fit in a display, and how they can accentuate your home décor style.
The Basics
If you want to make a vase display that stands out, you’ll need to think about why you’re using a vase in this display, this vase’s purpose. Is the vase just providing a place to stand a floral bouquet? Or is it adding a pop of contrasting colour or texture to the room? Is it going to be a large standing vase? There’s much to consider! However, once you know the purpose of your Vase, or rather, how it contributes to your desired decor, it will be a lot easier to choose the type of vase you need.
Vase Types - Material
Vase material is maybe one of the most important considerations for choosing a vase style. As readers of our previous
article on 2022’s decor trends will know that material contrast is a great way to highlight an object.
A good general rule of thumb is to choose the vase material that best accentuates your home decor style. Looking for something rustic, reclaimed for a rural Cottagecore look? Warm bronze, reclaimed tin, even mason jars will fit this need perfectly. Want something a little more Transitional Interior Design? An ornate, rounded amphora could work perfectly.
Vase Types - Height
Now, this one’s nice and simple. For traditional displays, flowers shouldn’t be more than 1.5 times the height of the vase itself. This, however, is only true of traditional displays, if you’re looking for something bold, modern, something with volume, consider ignoring that height rule and displaying taller, larger items in your vase. However, a key consideration after this point is balance and weight. You don’t want your entire display toppling over after a light breeze, and broken vase shards usually make for quite poor interior decor! So, it’s worth ensuring that if you’re going over the 1.5 limit, you’re keeping the vase’s base width in mind, and testing out if the final product is stable. Simply wobbling the vase a little, ensuring it is securely in your hands should be an adequate test.

Vase Types - Shape
Now, as you’re doubtlessly aware, there’s a lot of different vase types. Bowl Vases, Amphora Vases, Bud Vases, all just to name a few. The variance these vases largely have are in lip, flare, neck, body, shoulder, and base.
We’ll quickly break down what all of these components are, then describe what these components add to the decor.
So the lip is the top open rim of the vase, the gradient beneath it is known as the top flare, which expands outward from the thin neck of the vase. Below the neck is the shoulder, which is typically another bulbous part of the vase, the body, then the bottom, base of the vase.
Essentially what you need to consider with vase shapes is if you want your display to be wide or tall.
For example,vases such as hourglass vases tend to have a very skinny body, and a shoulder that blends in with its top flair, this allows for a simple design that provides both stability with a wide base, but also allows for a floral display with volume and impact, having a wide lip for that classical broad explosion of petals and life that flower displays are known for.
But, if you’re looking to make a tall, vertical branch display, consider a rectangular vase. Rectangle vases are just a chic, geometric glass rectangle, this doesn’t really accentuate the volume of the display, more allowing everything to simply stand up straight in a Minimalist, modern display vase.
Vase Types - Colour & Transparency
This final part is very important. The colour and opacity of your vase will somewhat determine just how much it stands out, not just against the rest of your decor, but against the flowers you use.
One of the reasons that glass, transparent vases are popular are because they’re about as colour-neutral as you can get, meaning that you can re-use that same vase regardless of the colour of the flowers, and without worrying that the vase colour will clash with your floral display. So, it’s seriously worth putting some thought into the kinds of flowers you’d like to display, and whether your vase should be transparent, or coloured. If your flowers are part of a colour scheme in their respective room, then why not use your vase to play on that? Provide a pop of contrast, or keep the colour uniform.
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