The floral trend that's ugly on purpose

Move over gorgeous, artfully-arranged bouquets of soft, pretty blooms – your days on Instagram are numbered.

Ugly flower arranging is what the cool kids are doing now, and all you need is miscellaneous produce and a devil-may-care attitude. 

Freakebana (freak-eh-ba-na) is a term coined by Stella Bugbee, the editor of The Cut, and plays on the word Ikebana – the Japanese art of arranging flowers.

Bugbee was inspired to name and popularise the trend by the artist-chef Laila Gohar, when, on a visit to her home, a sweet potato pockmarked with sprigs of greenery caught her eye. "It was a whimsical gesture – a floral arrangement as imagined by an alien farmer or a child gnome," she wrote.

Her obsession with mismatched, oftentimes weird and wacky, flower arranging ensued, and lucky for us playing at home (and for those who can't afford exorbitant florist fees), anything and everything goes. 

Check out Bugbee's Instagram account dedicated to the trend for more inspiration.  

As Bugbee shows above, the flowers can still be pretty, but the vessels as offbeat as you like.

The eccentric creations of Mexican designer Carla Valdivia, of Studio Katsu, confirmed Bugbee's sense that this was a true trend.

And soon other Instagrammers were creating their own version of the ugly-cool arrangements, confirming it was a true trend.

Suddenly, that slightly over-ripened banana is looking appealing...