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What’s Ahead in 2018: 10 Floral Designers to Watch This Year

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What’s Ahead in 2018: 10 Floral Designers to Watch This Year

January 4, 2018

Dried flowers, freestyle ikebana, and deconstructed bouquets—we’re predicting we’ll see more of these floral trends in 2018. Here are 10 of our favorite botanical stylists and floral designers who are setting the trends:

Seulki Kim in Seoul

Based in Seoul, Korea, floral designer Seulki Kim&#8\2\17;s \1304 Flower Studio specializes in the unexpected. Here, an Anemone and Tulip Arrangement is 93,000 ₩ (about 87.36 US).
Above: Based in Seoul, Korea, floral designer Seulki Kim’s 1304 Flower Studio specializes in the unexpected. Here, an Anemone and Tulip Arrangement is 93,000 ₩ (about 87.36 US).

Floral designer Seulki Kim offers frequent floral workshops on how to make summer garlands and arrange flowers in vases, as well as 21-session Future Florist master classes focused on more specialized subjects: cloud installations and floral snakes are popular topics. We’ve been following @1304_ on Instagram for awhile now and particularly admire her airy floral walls.

Yasuyo Harvey in London

Still life with shells; vignette by Yasuyo Harvey. See more at The Botanical Life: At Home with London Stylist Yasuyo Harvey. Photograph courtesy of The Modern House.
Above: Still life with shells; vignette by Yasuyo Harvey. See more at The Botanical Life: At Home with London Stylist Yasuyo Harvey. Photograph courtesy of The Modern House.

We spotted botanical designer Yasuyo Harvey’s work at London Design Festival, where she collaborated with British interiors phenom Faye Toogood to add texture and warmth to an exhibit that showcased Toogood’s spare, sand-casted-aluminum Spade chairs.

Harvey’s interactions with flora are “like meditation for me, a form of ritual,” she recently told The Modern House. “I am not good at drawing; combining textures is my skill. The raw materials always come first, and I get inspired by what’s in front of me.”

Sophia Moreno-Bunge in LA

 Photograph by Beth Coller for Gardenista. See more at \10 Ways to Bring Nature Home with Sophia Moreno-Bunge.
Above: Photograph by Beth Coller for Gardenista. See more at 10 Ways to Bring Nature Home with Sophia Moreno-Bunge.

We’ve loved floral designer Sophia Moreno-Bunge’s work since back in the day when she worked for NY-based florist Emily Thompson and also created a series of DIY floral posts to teach our readers such skills as how to forage for hibiscus, arrange decaying grapevines, and mix artichokes with poppies to great effect.

These days, Moreno-Bunge lives in LA, and creates her Isa Isa florals for weddings, workshops, and—when we’re lucky—us. Her recent post on anthuriums got us Rethinking a Hotel Lobby Flower.

Katherine Anderson in Seattle

Photography by Ellie Lillstrom for Gardenista.
Above: Photography by Ellie Lillstrom for Gardenista.

Seattle-based floral designer Katherine Anderson’s Marigold and Mint shop is a neighborhood institution in Capitol Hill neighborhood. Her latest venture, The London Plane Flower Shop, is a floral salon within a restaurant, with “a generous array of fresh-cut flowers seven days a week at the restaurant’s entrance,” writes Meredith, noting that Anderson “also has a floral studio to supply custom arrangements, bouquets, and centerpieces to local homes and events.

See more of Anderson’s work at The Flower Shop at Seattle’s London Plane.

Louis-Géraud Beaver in Paris

Stop in for cut flowers; at Castor Fleuriste in Paris, prices for Le Bouquet start at €45.
Above: Stop in for cut flowers; at Castor Fleuriste in Paris, prices for Le Bouquet start at €45.

“Before being a florist, I was an art dealer for fifteen years.  In search of the simple form, I explored primitivism, abstraction, brutalism, the contemporary,” says Paris-based Louis-Géraud Beaver of Castor Fleuriste. The same simple forms have made his floral stylings a favorite of designers, including creative director Clarisse Demory.

Iki Yukari in Tokyo

A Wall Display botanical arrangement in a frame is \2\1,600 (about \$\19\1.60 US) at The Little Shop of Flowers.
Above: A Wall Display botanical arrangement in a frame is 21,600 (about $191.60 US) at The Little Shop of Flowers.

“Flowers can be more free,” says Tokyo-based florist Iki Yukari. We’ve admired her work ever since photographer Aya Brackett wandered into The Little Shop of Flowers with her camera. See more in Shopper’s Diary: The Little Shop of Flowers in Tokyo.

Rebecca McMackin in Brooklyn

Rebecca McMackin brings home clippings to create seasonal arrangements. Or, in this case, her husband brings them home to her: he&#8\2\17;s he head of arboriculture at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Photograph courtesy of Rebecca McMackin.
Above: Rebecca McMackin brings home clippings to create seasonal arrangements. Or, in this case, her husband brings them home to her: he’s he head of arboriculture at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Photograph courtesy of Rebecca McMackin.

It’s hard to believe that floral styling isn’t even Rebecca McMackin’s day job. The director of horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park says the branches shown above are from a Prunus ‘Okame’ tree, the results of one of her husband’s pruning operations, “often carefully timed for beauty, but always without harming the tree.

Mathilde Vial in Paris

See more in Chic Techniques: \10 Ideas to Steal from a Parisian Florist. Photograph by Mimi Giboin.
Above: See more in Chic Techniques: 10 Ideas to Steal from a Parisian Florist. Photograph by Mimi Giboin.

Photographer Mimi Giboin discovered Parisian florist Mathilde Vial’s tiny On the Sunny Side shop on the Rue du Vertbois in the 2nd arrondissement this summer. It took an eagle eye: The storefront has no sign and is more of an atelier than a boutique. But we’re betting Vial won’t stay under the radar for long: her reputation spreads by word of mouth and many of her customers are longtime loyalists.

Polly Nicholson in Wiltshire

Dried alliums hang from the rafters in a UK stable. Photograph by Britt Willoughby Dyer. See more in Bayntun Flowers: Florist Polly Nicholson’s Walled Garden in Wiltshire.
Above: Dried alliums hang from the rafters in a UK stable. Photograph by Britt Willoughby Dyer. See more in Bayntun Flowers: Florist Polly Nicholson’s Walled Garden in Wiltshire.

The proprietor of Bayntun Flowers, “Polly is a grower and a florist (who studied medieval art) so it seems right that the scene in her walled garden hints not only at the industry of Brueghel, but the flowery allure of Botticelli,” writes Kendra.

“Polly Nicholson herself retrained in horticulture at the English Gardening School at the Chelsea Physic Garden, having had a career at Sotheby’s,” writes Kendra. “On moving from London with her family, Polly knew that she wanted to grow flowers for cutting, without predicting the extent to which her ambitions would take over.

Sue Volkel in Healdsburg, CA

Photograph via Shed.
Above: Photograph via Shed.

With an abundance of homegrown flowers and edibles from Sonoma County neighbors at her disposal, floral designer Sue Volkel creates such fanciful floral arrangements as “small glass vases with clutches of delicate feverfew flowers, wild sweet peas, and small strands of ripening strawberries, still hanging from the vine” for events at Shed, a light-filled restaurant and housewares emporium housed in a 10,000-square-foot, glass-walled barn in Healdsburg, California.

From time to time, Volkel teaches seasonal workshops: see upcoming events here.

See more creative flora (and hardscape designs) at Steal This Look: Garden Courtyard at Shed in Healdsburg, CA.

N.B.: Inspired to create your own floral arrangements? Get started:

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