On Flower Retail
On Flower Retail
Fri Sep 29 2023
Retail flowers is a bad idea. I knew this going in. I had built a business on the back of events and installations and I could do basic math.
Every 6 months or so, my business advisor and I would model a store and each time we agreed that even the best case scenario didnt look all that good. Now having been open for almost 3 years, I have the hard data to prove us right. Oh well, money may be the universal score card, but it is not the only one.
I love a good party as much as the next florist, but events are a gong. They can make a beautiful sound- but it is in the quieter notes, the grace notes in between, where flowers matter most to me. A suspended installation can awe an audience and elaborate arrangements can make a room dreamy but it is the single stems that wake me from slumber and keep me from sleepwalking through my days.
I can think of a lot more fun ways to not make money than having a store, but for me, there was something missing. Every romantic is impractical in their own impractical way and mine is a shop filled with flowers. In my romantic world, romance isn’t relegated to a certain date and time or even exclusive to a particular person. Romance doesn’t require an RSVP. Romance doesn’t want everything to be perfect or perfectly framable within a picture. The wonder is in the ordinary, not the occasion.
Creating the world you want to live in takes more than opening your doors. It’s work. In the mornings, we make it to market early to have first pick. We schlep them back, bushels and branches in brown paper. Arms’ loads full. Fresh water, fresh cuts. Buckets overflowing with blooms.
On those days when New York offers no quarter and the city is being particularly c*nty, our doors are open. A flower changes absolutely nothing--- except, actually everything. What that everything is, well that’s personal.