To celebrate Chelsea Flower Week, we caught up with Flowers and Set Designer, Letty Houldsworth. Join us in our King's Road store on Thursday 25th of May to meet Letty and receive a free hand-tied posy from her with every purchase.
Q. What inspired your career in flower and set design?
I’ve always been drawn to organic forms. Growing up in Tanzania and the Scottish Highlands has embedded my deep relationship with the natural world. I studied graphic design at Edinburgh, but my final piece was flowers set in plaster, which subconsciously led me down the sculpture route with an emphasis on flowers. I didn’t realise then I could make a career out of it. I was working in film and set design in Berlin and began to bring these elements into my set design. During Covid I became fascinated with flowers - moving back to London in 2021 where there was an opportunity to engage with the floristry scene, which is really flourishing at the moment.
Q. What does a typical day look like for you?
4am wake ups… I freelance for a few different florists and set designers as well as making time for my own projects. Commercial and freelance work feeds my artistic practice; it's a symbiotic relationship. This involves rescuing excess or old flowers (rummaging through bins) from freelance jobs and continuing their life by drying and preserving. I’m fascinated by the process of decay, and find dead flowers are often more beautiful than fresh cut flowers.
The whole process inspires me, and I’ve been getting more involved in music and party flowers. Over the past year or so I’ve been doing floral installs for music events, creating rambling displays combining light, motion and shadows. The whole set comes alive, an experience for all the senses.
Q. What is your favourite thing about flower and set design?
I’m obsessed with collecting and gathering - everything is treasure. The art of collecting and gathering beautiful natural objects and flowers. Ordering the chaos into something in a creative concept.
Q. How would you describe your design style?
Sculptural. I like to make people notice the things that are already there, bringing the natural world into our line of sight. And to consider how everything is connected - entanglement. If one thing collapses the whole thing will tumble.
Q. What has been your favourite project to work on?
Doing the flowers for the Gay Times Awards 2022.
Q. What are your favourite flowers this time of year?
Fritillaria but sadly they are coming to end now.
Q. Any top tips on styling flowers?
Approach it as a collaboration with the flowers, rather than projecting your own ideas onto them. I don’t like when there is no balance and a flower is not allowed to fall naturally.
Q. Do you have any advice for those looking to start a career in floristry/set design?
Stock up on extra sleep now.
Q. What was your inspiration for the installation at our Kings Road store?
The Iris is the flower of Florence which is the inspiration for Birdie’s collection. Near the city there are vast valleys of Iris set against the quintessential Italian Cyprus which line the hills of Tuscany. Luckily Iris’s are in season in the UK now. I managed to find the wonderful Martin at Chailey Iris Farm who had a huge range of Bearded Iris in the Birdie Fortescue colour pallet.
Q. Your favourite Birdie Fortescue pieces?
I love the Steven James vase range.
