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Floral Artist Aude Giraud a.k.a. ‘Ask A French’ Introduces Her Second Act As An Indie-Fo...

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Floral Artist Aude Giraud a.k.a. ‘Ask A French’ Introduces Her Second Act As An Indie-Folk Singer

In 2015, the Parisian modern-day bohemian Aude Giraud uprooted to Singapore then launched the flower-focused lifestyle business Ask A French, which helped start the trend for bucolic-chic arrangements and has since become an industry favourite. Last month she introduced her second act as a creative: a guitar-strumming, folk-influenced singer-songwriter with a full album ready for release. We catch up with Giraud – a member of the FEMALE Collective – and discover a musician as romantic and serious as the floral artist.

by Noelle Loh  /   January 22, 2021
ask a french

Florist Aude Giraud is starting a new chapter in her life as a recording artist. Credit: Veronica Tay

It all started at a party FEMALE co-hosted two Septembers ago. With her beguiling, French-accented brand of breeziness, floral artist, and lifestyle/travel content creator Aude Giraud – a guest and long-time friend of the magazine – began sharing during a casual conversation about how she had been learning the guitar and was considering recording music. Unlike how most exchanges at parties turn out, Giraud, 36, stuck by her words.

Last month, the French-Indonesian who’s been based in Singapore since 2015 released her first single Oh Boy, a soothing if haunting folk ballad that reveals not just her delicate vocals, but also musical and songwriting prowess under the moniker Flanery.

As it turns out, the former broadcast journalist studied at a “very classic music institution” in Paris as a pre-teen where she specialised in the viola for years. (Her mother thought that her first choice for an instrument, the harp, was “too complicated” to have at home while the violin and guitar classes were full, she explains.)

READ MORE: Watch Video: Our Fashion Editor Learns How To Make A Bouquet With Florist AskAFrench

For the rest of this year, she will drop more tracks from her independent eponymous album that was produced by Singapore’s godfather of indie music, Leonard Soosay, and will be unveiled in its entirety by the end of 2021.

Mostly in English with bits of French woven in (like Ces Questions – described as “the most melancholic song of the album”), they alternate between pure acoustic ditties and more eclectic numbers livened up by the likes of dance-hall beats and EDM percussion inspired by the drums of traditional Chinese lion dances.

ask a french
Credit:Veronica Tay

Singapore-based French floral artist Aude Giraud ushers in the new year with a new career as a folk-influenced singer-songwriter, a new home – a refurbished former beach house in the east – and a new baby.

Largely self-penned by Giraud during a period of pre-Covid, self-imposed isolation in a hilltop cabin in Gisborne, New Zealand (most famously the first city in the world to see the sun rise), they make a poetic, heartfelt medley that touches on anything from her emotions to her late grandfather. Viral Tiktok hits, these are not.

The newcomer artiste and soon-to-be first-time mother (she was in her third trimester at our photoshoot) delves deeper into the romance of making music for the soul.

Visit www.flanerymusic.com for more updates on Flanery


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https://www.femalemag.com.sg/gallery/fashion/ask-a-french-florist-flanery-singer-indie-folk-aude-giraud/
Floral Artist Aude Giraud a.k.a. 'Ask A French' Introduces Her Second Act As An Indie-Folk Singer
image

Why ‘Flanery’ for a stage name? Why not use your own name, Aude, to perform with?

“Aude is the name my parents chose for me. As a musician, I needed a name that would reflect my music. When I hear Flanery, there’s an ethereal rawness; something soothing and a bit mysterious. The moniker is influenced by the romantic Parisian flanerie (French for stroll). I used to travel a lot before the pandemic, going where my intuition would lead me and not being afraid of getting lost. This aimless state is inspiring and mind-opening. Your sense of observation is increased and you feel incredibly light. Now I can’t travel, but I am still a flaneuse – I can watch the rain or sit in a coffee shop and walk the corners of my mind. In fact, one of my songs LTLT – Live the Little Things is about that feeling.”

It’s rare for 30 somethings with a thriving business to launch music careers. What made you decide to do so?

“I started playing the guitar – an instrument I never got to pick up when I was a music student – in 2018. I just wanted to enjoy myself; play and sing without academic pressure and with no particular goal in mind. It had been years since I practised music, but when I did that, it was like opening a magic box. I went into a period of deep questioning and found a new way of expression to let go of everything. It hit me like an epiphany (the track Oh Boy references this). Everything happened very fast and I decided to ride the wave. It was healing.”

Metal rings, Dior. Dress and slip, stylist’s own

Veronica Tay
image

Describe your music.
“It’s indie and folk-influenced. In the album, there are 11 songs. Some are just my guitar and me. Others have some light EDM input or some sounds captured on my phone – like crickets from the Sri Lankan jungle on Destination and lion dance beats for the song Singapore. The local producer Leonard Soosay helped me find the right textures that respected my storytelling intentions. In the song Home, for example, he enhanced the echoes of raindrops to create a sense of levitation.”

It seems like your multicultural, peripatetic background has had a strong influence on your music. Tell us more.

“My background (her father’s French; her mother Javanese) gave me a strong inclination for travel and my travels influenced my music a lot; this time, New Zealand in particular – where I wrote most of my songs. I had specifically gone to Gisborne – the first spot in the world to see the sun rise – and holed myself up in a cabin overlooking the hills and ocean during the process to not be distracted. I felt that I needed to go far away to find a home for my music.”

Jeux de Liens Harmony medium 18K rose gold pendant with diamonds and mother-of-pearl and matching large 18K pink gold pendant with diamonds, Chaumet. Cotton dress and slip, stylist’s own

Veronica Tay
image

Wher does your floral aristry practice Ask A French and musical personal Flanery begin? 

“They are separate entities, but both are part of my life every day. At the moment, the flower work is my main source of income – as Virginia Woolf said, ‘A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’; she didn’t believe in being a starving artist. It’s a lot of work and juggling between the two, but being passionate helps. That said, I see both as a form of craft and art; disciplines in which intuition play an important part. Also, when I hold my mahogany wood guitar, I feel very close to nature as I do with flowers.”

How do you expect to compete as a musician at a time when the biggest hits are electronically produced, TikTok-influenced pop songs?

“Everyone is free to express their art the way they want. What’s beautiful about music is that you don’t have to compete with others – I’m not in American Idol. People will listen to different music depending on their moods. Sometimes I feel like listening to Billie Eilish and then go for Leonard Cohen or Novo Amor in the following hour. There’s room for everyone.”

Cotton embroidered dress, www.luulaa.co. Metal necklace, Dior

Photography Veronica Tay Styling Chia Wei Choong Hair Sean Ang, using IGK Makeup Makeup Wee Ming, using Dior

A version of this article first appeared in the January/February 2021 Art & Music Edition of FEMALE

Veronica Tay
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MCI (P) 032/12/2022. Published by SPH Media Limited, Co. Regn. No. 202120748H. Copyright © 2023 SPH Media Limited. All rights reserved.