An evening celebrating British Flowers Week and the launch of Blooms: Contemporary Floral Design, published by Phaidon.
Join us to celebrate the publication of Blooms: Contemporary Floral Design, a glorious survey of more than 80 contemporary floral designers who are pushing the boundaries of their art. The book looks at the explosive impact that floral designers from the last decade are having on a previously underappreciated art form.
The evening will begin with a private view of five floral installations created for British Flowers Week at the Garden Museum, followed by a panel discussion. Co-hosted by Clare Coulson (co-editor of Blooms and journalist formerly of the Daily Telegraph and Harper’s Bazaar) and floral designer Shane Connolly, the panel will feature a number of featured florists from Blooms including Worm London, Rachel Siegfried of Green & Gorgeous, and Harriet Slaughter of Bold Oxlip, discussing the exciting new directions in which the floral industry is heading.
About the panellists
Clare Coulson writes on gardens, interiors and fashion for FT How To Spend It, the Daily Telegraph, the Observer Magazine, Gardens Illustrated and is a regular contributor to Gardenista.com. She was formerly fashion features director of Harper’s Bazaar and fashion editor of the Daily Telegraph. She also teaches fashion journalism at Central Saint Martins in London.
Shane Connolly has more than twenty years experience as a floral designer, and his timeless, artisan floral arrangements have attracted clients including HRH Prince of Wales.
Katie Smyth and Terri Chandler started Worm in 2016 in East London. What began as a book and bunch delivery service now sees the pair designing flowers for occasions, print and conceptual projects. They are inspired by many things starting with the imperfect wild flowers that grew around them while growing up on the coast of southern Ireland.
Rachel Siegfried’s idea for Green and Gorgeous began germinating long ago, while she was working in an 18th century walled garden in the Cotswolds. Tending the cut flowers, Rachel became aware that the natural beauty and scent that surrounded her was missing from the commercially grown offerings available on the high street. Using her love and knowledge of cultivating flowers, and driven by a core belief in growing sustainably, Rachel decided to bring the beauty of an English garden to the world of cut flowers.
Harriet Slaughter is the founder of Bold Oxlip, a South-East London based floral studio that sources unusual seasonal flowers and plants to create minimal, garden-inspired floral work. Her approach is artisanal, treating each arrangement as a work of art, with flowers as the medium. Harriet also tends a fledgling cutting garden which provides unusual and hard-to-source native plants and actively supports the flower-growing industry in the UK by using as many British-grown ingredients as possible.
British Flowers Week Exhibitors
This year’s exhibitors are: Ruth Davis from All for Love London, Graeme Corbett from Bloom & Burn, Carly Rogers of Carly Rogers Flowers, Rowan Lewis of Rowan Blossom, and Terri Chandler and Katie Smyth from Worm.