“This is kind of insane, even by our standards,” said San Francisco-based interior designer Ken Fulk about the bustling honeybee hive vignettes he conjured up for the New York Botanical Garden’s preview party and plant sale held on Thursday, April 28, during the organization’s 2016 Antique Garden Furniture Fair. “I hadn’t been to the Botanical Garden until last fall when [New York jewelry designer] Mish Tworkowski invited me to come and see it,” he added. To celebrate the antique fair’s 25th year, Fulk highlighted the role of pollinating bees in his grand sets, and even outfitted a pair of models as killer bees to stand guard while DJ Kiss presided over her the setlist. “Bees link all gardens, whether the spaces are tiny or big,” said Fulk. He and his team built a series of beehives woven out of rope, and shipped them to San Francisco for the evening. Fulk even located look 19 from the Gucci spring 2016 men’s collection—an aqua suit covered in floral and fern motifs—and wore it to the party. “I shopped like a madman,” said Fulk who also found himself taken with the extraordinary array of plants (in addition to the antiques). “The Botanical Gardens are pretty, but I didn’t realize the biodiversity there. They’re really these brainiacs who study biodiversity. Yet here you are in the Bronx, and you feel like you’re in a fairytale,” said Fulk of the magical evening that took place two days before he celebrated the opening of his New York studio.

By Elizabeth Varnell

Pictured: Ken Fulk at the New York Botanical Gardens.
Photo by: Julie Skarratt

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