Lucy Vail

British flowers for otherworldly compositions

• Lucy is specialised in large-scale, spectacular floristry arrangements
• She is a huge fan of bright colours and British flowers
• She collaborates with her mother, who runs a flower farm

Lucy Vail had been making Christmas wreaths since she was 16. She was so talented that while she was still at university someone asked her to arrange flowers for their daughter's wedding. Lucy was puzzled, but not discouraged. She learned from YouTube tutorials how to make table arrangements, how to suspend flowers and so on, and in the end her flower arrangements on the day were a success. This is when she decided to take floristry up as her profession. Lucy contacted Tuscany Flower, one of the top wedding florists in the world, and asked to be their apprentice. She moved to Florence to work with them for a year and a half and even contributed to George Clooney’s and Kim Kardashian’s weddings. “It was an absolute roller coaster,” she remembers. “We worked 18 hours a day, but it was the best training ever.” Further training with other luxury florists followed, both in Venice and in the UK. Then, Lucy was ready to set up her own studio.

Interview

©Alexandra Shamis

©Mark Crick

How would you define your style?

It is very colourful and quintessentially British, highlighting the best of nature and not going against it. I like using lots of flowers in lots of different varieties, as well as lots of whimsical foliage. My arrangements are made on a very big scale: I focus on creating a world that people can walk into, rather than just on what is on the table.

Why did you set up a flower farm with your mother, alongside running your flower studio?

First, because British flowers are truly spectacular, with amazing variety, extraordinary colours and scents like no other. Then, because I really care about sustainability. Not only do I prefer local flowers, but I also avoid single-use plastic and try to reduce waste to zero, by drying wedding flowers to make Christmas wreaths, for example.

How are your arrangements created?

Each arrangement is more than just a pretty picture, there is a whole world of life and planning behind it. My team and I could work for six to seven months on each one, maybe even a year. We do sketches, we go to the site, we do mock-ups of the flowers of the tables. We are constantly evolving designs in collaboration with architects, artists and metal workers.

Were you the flower designer at your own wedding?

My team really did create the extraordinary. We had an archway full to the brim of colour and of British flowers, the church was full of scent and I was surrounded by columns of flowers. My designs evolved over the course of seven months. I was probably my worst kind of client, but it made me understand the way my clients feel and how key customer care is to my profession.

Lucy Vail is a master artisan: she began her career in 2013 and she started teaching in 2017

Works

©Rebecca Goddard

©Alexanndra Shamis

©Alexanndra Shamis

©Yaov Picherski

©Added Dimension

Where