Turning flowers into art

Imagine being surrounded by fresh flowers every day. That’s the reality for Yannic Forrest Collins, a florist who has been using his living and dining room as a makeshift florist studio for the past year.

When I meet Yann in said living room/dining room/florist on Picton Street, he’s enveloped by orchids, alliums, delphiniums, roses, hydrangeas, ferns and lavender overflowing in abundance from mismatched vases he’s thrifted from charity shops.

It’s aesthetically glorious, but must be a nightmare to upkeep. Yann doesn’t seem to mind, and nor do his housemates apparently, for whom the carefully arranged vessels of flower and fauna only add to an already stylish interior.

Yann describes his floral arrangements as colourful but not bright. “I’m really influenced by Australian and East Asian florists,” he says.

“In Australia, it’s all quite compact and big-headed flowers, whereas in Japan and China, it’s more sparse and free.”

“This is my living, dining and studio space”

“They are quite different styles but I try to combine them. There’s always a pop of something, a lot of greens and pinks.”

Yann sources most of his flowers from a Bristol wholesaler whose delicate blossoms come over from Holland.

Floristry was almost an epiphany moment for the 34-year-old. After working odd jobs in hospitality, he decided he needed to make a change. “I was just walking down the street one day and it came to be that I was going to be a florist,” he laughs.

“Learning the traditional way at college, there are a lot of rules. You’re always taught to choose your straightest stem,” he reflects.

Yann enrolled at Bath Spa on a floristry course, and managed to get a job at the Flower Shop on Gloucester Road. He learned a lot, but the course was quite traditional. It was the on-the-job training that fuelled Yann’s innovative floral arrangements he designs today.

Yann decided to become self-employed two years ago, after he was given the opportunity to set up shop in Mila Plants on Park Street before it closed in August last year.

Yann supplies weddings, Valentines day celebrations and is looking to move into supplying Film and TV productions

“Now that I work for myself, I do the opposite. I’m always looking for the twisty stems and trying to have more of a flow with the flowers rather than trying to manipulate them.

“At college, you’re taught to always work in odd numbers, but now it’s not so strict. There are some things I stick to, for example, in some cultures, four flowers represent death. In other cultures, flowers have a lot more meaning than they do here.”

He has supplied weddings, created displays for Harrods Beauty and also works on photoshoots, with the aim of stepping into the TV and film industry.

The art of floristry hasn’t always come easy for Yann. “I’ve always been creative, and have a bit of a background in photography which helps with composition,” he says. “But it didn’t come naturally to me at first. I had to really practise it in the shop.”

Yann wants to open his own studio eventually, and set up a website with nationwide delivery – something he’s working on getting a driving licence for.

Before I leave, Yann makes up an arrangement for me to photograph, carefully picking each flower before manoeuvring them at different angles and heights to create an intricate artistic floral bundle that could put any supermarket flower bouquet to shame.

To see more of Yann’s designs or purchase a floral arrangement, visit @wndr_flwr on Instagram.

This story was originally published in the May & June 2024 Bristol24/7 magazine

All photos: Mia Vines Booth

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