The industrial floristry complex and the future of floristry
Floristry. It’s all about the flowers. It sounds so obvious, but you’d be surprised... Where you might reasonably expect that floristry is all about the flowers, in this modern industrial day and age, it has become all about efficiencies, scale and lowest cost models. But we see the future of floristry differently, and our whole raison d’etre is to teach to that more sustainable, flower-centric model and create a new generation of florists that dare to operate in a different way.
Over the last fifty years or so, the floristry industry has become just that - an ‘industry’ with fragmented, lengthy supply chains, ‘specialisation’ and ‘intensification’ of the means of production and a deskilling of the labour force. All of which has severed the relationship between the florist and the flowers.
Within this ‘industry’, florists are presented with an online portal of a vast array of standardized flowers, with straight stems and fixed stem lengths, in all varieties and colours that can be ordered in bulk from around the world for next day delivery.
With these standardized ingredients, arrangements can be made according to a ‘recipe’ no matter the season, palette or volume.
And as a result, floristry has become another example of a perfect economic industrial model of standardisation: global specialisation and efficiency. Tick. Low cost factors of production. Tick. A deskilled, low cost labour force. Tick. Mass production of a standardised product at lowest cost, replicable through extensive distribution channels to a large customer base. Tick.
But this isn’t an industry that we want to be a part of, and, frankly, it isn’t an industry that can continue to exist in the future. It is quite literally unsustainable. (To understand more about why, read our blog on Six Inches of Soil).
The future of floristry is fracturing down two lines:
The intensive industrial model, dominated by large scale, digital businesses, such as Bloom & Wild and the supermarkets, leveraging economies of scale in their purchasing power and distribution systems to continue to sell low cost flowers.
The return to floristry as a craft, characterized by regeneratively and locally grown flowers, arranged by skilled artisans, who have a deep understanding of their medium, selling to values-led customers who have an appreciation of the artistry and sustainability of this craft.
The first category of business does not employ florists. At best they employ a small team of designers that create the recipes that are then ‘picked and packed’ en masse for distribution. The margins for these businesses are all in the ‘efficiencies’ that the sheer scale of operations enables.
With prices pushed so low, there is no room for margins to allow florists to operate on a smaller scale and to pay themselves a decent income. Florists, in the traditional sense, quite simply can’t compete at this end of the market.
So let’s not.
It is in this second category that the future of floristry lies. Not in a race to the bottom, but in a return to floristry as a craft, where the skill of the florist, and their mastery of their medium, is recognised and rewarded. We call this flor-art-istry: floristry that celebrates the artistry and the connection to nature and the seasons that has been lost in standardised floristry. And the market for this kind of floristry exists and is growing, driven by the increasing numbers of customers who are led by their core values, particularly around the environment and supporting small business instead of ‘only price’, when choosing what to buy.
To thrive in this future ‘industry’, florists need to cultivate a deep knowledge and understanding of their materials, they need to develop an understanding of how to design, not just follow recipes, and they need to learn different approaches to business to succeed in this new landscape.
The Flowers: Flor-art-istry actually is all about the flowers… in particular, florists need to know what locally and regeneratively grown flowers are available when, how they grow, in what volumes and in what colours. And because they have been grown without the use of chemicals, they need to learn how to handle them according to each variety and the different season so they perform best in the vase.
The Design: Locally grown flowers are not standardised. That’s what makes them so superior as a medium. But it does mean that florists need to learn the principles of design as it applies to flowers with all their ‘unstandardised’ wonks, curves, lengths, textures and colours, no matter the time of year. They need to develop the confidence to adapt their designs if certain flowers aren’t available at a certain time. Basically, it means florists need to learn how to write their own recipes, not just follow them.
The Business: Floristry is a business. Yet all too often the only training florists receive is in the arranging. The practical side of putting their craft out there to find their customer and grow their business is often totally overlooked. How do you compete, how do you communicate, how do you price and how do you succeed sustainably - emotionally and financially as well as environmentally? Florists need to understand how to operate shrewdly and how to leverage the digital advances that have effectively levelled the playing field for small businesses. They need to learn how to be the floral Davids to the industry Goliaths.
This is why we set up The School of Sustainable Floristry. To reimagine how floristry is taught and practiced. Rather than teaching outdated skills more suited to an industry that is simply no longer viable, we train the next generation of florists, from our School located on a flower farm, with the knowledge, skills and business tools required to flourish in this new ‘industry’ landscape.
