The Flower Appreciation Society are not your average florists. Founders Anna Day and Ellie Jauncey met at the Scolt Head pub in North London two years ago. Ellie had spent the summer helping her mother, also a florist, with orders for wedding flowers, and Anna had just completed a (very uninspiring) year-long floristry course. They were both bored by the endless tweaking and prinking of professional floristry and instead bonded over a love of fresh, English flowers, arranged in a freer, more natural way.
Their first job came when a friend of Anna's asked her to arrange her wedding flowers and Ellie helped out. Soon after the owner of the Scolt Head suggested they create weekly arrangements for the pub. And so the seed was sown for The Flower Appreciation Society. They built a website (brought to life with Anna's illustrations), and found themselves a studio (filling spare space with friends and fellow creatives in order to pay the rent).
We came across them at the Port Eliot Festival, where it seemed that every woman and girl queued to be dressed in their headdresses of wild flowers and blooming hydrangeas. They'd been given a budget of just £50, but crucially also had permission to plunder the gardens. Their approach summed up everything they do free, wild, brimming with life. Back in London they've been working with local allotment growers to source flowers as fresh as can be. When they do visit the big markets their preference is always for in-season British blooms.
Their distinct style has caught the eye of many - they work on a stream of weddings for hip, young Londoners, and spend an increasing amount of time on fashion shoots (including one for the Guardian late last year featuring Sienna Miller and Tippi Hedren). Earlier this month they opened a pop-up Valentine's shop in east London. Anna enlisted her brother, Jon (an English academic and bicycle courier, who also writes for Toast Travels) to deliver each bouquet by hand.
In the midst of all this the pair both manage to hold down alternative professions Anna as a midwife, Ellie as a knitwear designer. So... Not your average florists... Definitely not your average girls.
The Flower Appreciation Society will be decking our Marylebone shop with flowers for it's re-launch in March. As a prelude to this, we'll be collaborating with Anna and Ellie for the month of March on a number of activities, including their own guide to flower arranging.
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