Faire florès

Literally: To make florès

Example: “Cette coupe de cheveux a fait florès dans les années quatre-vingt.” — That haircut was all the rage in the eighties.

English equivalent: To be all the rage

Origin: Florès survives only in this phrase, and its origin is uncertain. The phrase is old: a letter in Richelieu's correspondence of 1638 reports that Saint-Quentin "made florès" for the birth of the Dauphin, the future Louis XIV, with bonfires so large that six houses burned down, and the Académie française listed it in its first dictionary (1694), when it meant to make a brilliant show. The main explanation, favored by the Trésor de la langue française, derives it from Occitan faire flori, to be in a flourishing state, from Latin floridus (in bloom). Another links it to Don Florès de Grèce, the dashing hero of a 16th-century chivalric romance, but this is considered less likely.