warming. Her work has featured in numerous magazines and has catered for many glamorous brides, including super-model Kate Moss, however Vic has remained truly grounded and she’s proud to state that she’s always been a shop girl. She worked in a fl ower shop for fourteen years before going it alone and puts her success down to “bloody hard work, commitment and politeness”. Vic’s philosophy is about
allowing everyone into her world; fi rst and foremost she runs a fl ower shop which serves whoever comes through the door. She adores being able to buy high- end fl owers and then serve them to anyone and everyone. Despite being able to boast such a sparkling clientele she doesn’t see herself as a celebrity fl orist; the concept of ‘client lists’ makes her fume as she puts all her customers on the same level. Her raw passion for fl owers
is clear as she disputes the argument that supermarkets are destroying the industry; Vic’s belief is that “it’s brilliant if anyone is buying fl owers, even if they’re from a supermarket”. She’s super keen to get new people buying blooms and her enthusiasm shines a new light on that frustrating experience when a customer spends 45 minutes selecting just a few fl owers from your stand – Vic believes that it’s just wonderful that they’re interested in and enjoying fl owers full stop. She stresses that fl oristry
is subjective so it’s important to cater to every customer individually – it may be diffi cult but those £8 arrangements count! She notes the diff erence between trends of the past; the dated domes, knotting, and bound blooms of the 90’s, and styles of today – her look is world away now with a light, natural, loose and garden-esque feel with her own unique style shining through. Her advice to anyone starting
out in the industry is to really go for it – it’s a huge commitment and shouldn’t be underestimated, however it’s well and truly worth it, adding “I’m shocked and proud of what my shop has achieved”.
The Eco-Queen Lauren Craig’s ethical business Thinking Flowers was set up with the aim to create minimal, modern and meaningful designs with good values at heart. She strives to improve sustainability and decrease green waste by composting and ‘upcycling’. Her mission is well underway having already designed a Mother Earth range for Budgens supermarket, a commission for the Eden Project and ethical design courses at the Victoria and Albert Museum. As far as she’s concerned,
collaboration ranks far higher than competition in business because in hard times people want to come together to pull through. An example of this sort of teamwork can be found in another project close to her heart – ‘Food from the Sky’ - a community garden on the roof of Thornton’s Budgens supermarket in Crouch End in North London, where the community grow food to sell in the supermarket underneath. It also acts as a learning space for the surrounding communities and they’re already underway with various programmes and courses on topics such as growing, biodiversity, sustainability, earth care, and even bee keeping! Lauren raves about creative
‘nomadism’; using empty space to its full potential. The way that everything is becoming more and more portable means more imaginative uses can be found for vacant spaces. This ‘pop-up generation’ is spreading like wildfi re as the trend catches on in towns and cities all over the country, with Lauren experiencing it fi rst hand as she fondly remembered selling fragrant
Lauren Craig. Picture courtesy of Andy Asztalos
jasmine from her pop-up shop called Field in Brixton Village. Lauren has a passion for
juxtaposing beauty and nature with urban environments, and she made a gorgeous example of it when working for the Tate Museum. She wanted to allow all sorts of people to enjoy her work rather than just those visiting the museum so her team went out and dressed the inside of a phone box from top to toe in fl owers, they then hid behind it and called the phone whilst watching the reactions of people as they entered a fl oral urban Narnia. Lauren says “people expressed so much joy at having beautiful fl owers in their environment and I want to keep creating opportunities for that to happen”.
The Artist With a background in fi ne art Rebecca Louise Law didn’t enter the industry as your typical fl orist. Instead she spent time painting fl owers whilst at university where they slowly transformed from being her subject to her creative material of choice, paving the way for her work to progress from 2D to 3D, qualifying her title of fl oral installation artist. She found herself
F&wb Summer 2013
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