FleurEx 2016
If you aren’t some how involved with flowers then the chances are you won’t know about Flreuex, I didn’t until this year (shock, horror!) And what is it you ask? Fleurex is a florist convention organised by the British Floral Association (BFA) where suppliers of fresh flowers, sundries, tech, teaching and pretty much flower/florist related get together in a fancy hotel for a weekend of epicness! Cool right!?
As well as the display stands there are also demos and installations. This year housed The Flower Lab, a movement to bring floristry into the modern age of commercialism. It has huge heavy bell jars which i’d imagine cost a fortune, lots of plants and funky ways of thinking about things to try and move away from the traditional way of doing things.
So I decided that I’d grab my friend Sue from Pink and Rose and we’d head down there for the day! Say hello to Sue!
We were lucky enough to watch Laura Leong and Annette von Einem hold 3 demonstrations throughout the day (you should check their work out It’s amazing). A lot of the work was pre prepped and completed on stage and honestly, it was incredible. Now they weren’t the types of things you’d be likely to see in your local florist but cor blimey were they good!
Piece By Laura Leong
Annette von Einem is from Copenhagen and whilst on stage she discussed the approach to commercial floristry which allowed a glimpse into the fascinating contrast in attitudes business over there and over here have towards floral installations. A lot of her designs use natural materials giving a very raw and nautical feel, this also made the colour palette very neutral and textured.
If you own a business whether you have floral displays or not have you ever thought or discussed with your florist the other options you can explore to really get the most out of your displays?
The event housed the main stage as well as a smaller stage with younger florists showing their skills then finished off with the announcement and ceremony of the competition winners. Finally you got to go and view the competition entries.
These types of events are really important, not just for the free stuff you can get (although let’s face it we all love free stuff) but in a creative industry - and it is definitely that - it’s good to be able to ground yourself and learn new skills and styles from one another. You should never stop learning whatever your profession or skill!
Anyway, now it’s over the florists are all crawling back into their flower caves until next year (I lie, we’re always very busy and spend hardly any time in our caves!)
Strizz
