If you thought that running a business during Covid-19 is tough, imagine how that situation is like for a fledgling small independent entreprise. Just ask Denise Nicolette, the founder and brains behind the floral company Fleur Khloris. The 24-year-old started the brand with her business partner and good friend Sherlyn Leo, who supports in the back end operations, in February this year at a time when uncertainties brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic were already putting businesses and retailers in a tizzy.
In a small but saturated local scene that’s filled with players spanning the avant-garde to the froufrou, Fleur Khloris’ arrangements are like a (baby’s) breath of fresh air for their nostalgic and romantic flair and their creative use of commonly-sourced blooms like the chrysanthemum. Its Instagram account is peppered with playful yet nonchalant images lensed through a dreamy filter, much like how we envision a Miu Miu x Rodarte floral collaboration to look like.
But restricted flower supplies and the circuit-breaker in place, meant that the duo was not able to showcase their craft. Instead, they dreamed up a novel idea recently to market their flowers by illustrating virtual bouquets reminiscent of vintage botanical drawings, which might be the first service of its kind here by a florist. Here, we get Nicolette to give us a walkthrough of how they do it.
“Fleur means ‘flower’ in French, while Khloris is the Greek goddess of flowers. I am very interested in ancient classical art, whereas Sherlyn is very quirky. She has a thing for goddesses and anything along those lines, so that’s how we settled on the name Fleur Khloris.”
“I’ve always had an interest in them and grew up in an environment surrounded by flowers and plants. My mum used to fill our home with floral arrangements. She had a knack for making the simplest, most common flowers look so magical, but I never really tried to create my own arrangements until I was much older.
In 2015, I took up a part-time job at one of the mainstream floral companies here, while studying content marketing in school. I would sometimes try my hand at styling and picking flowers, and my then boss very generously taught me a thing or two. It was also where I learnt about flowers – how to care for them, dry them, style bouquets, and more.”
“I would describe our aesthetic as classy, with a tinge of opulence and quirkiness.
I enjoy artistically clashing colours and styles to make a bouquet. For example, I’ll take deep burgundy chrysanthemums and mix them with bright yellow orchids. Using flowers that people don’t traditionally use for bouquets like chrysanthemums (usually used for funeral bouquets) also allows me to keep prices low. At Fleur Khloris, we want to incorporate flowers that are lower in value, but still, look like they’re worth a million bucks. That’s important to me because I want to make out bouquets accessible to people.
I actually sent a couple of bouquets to my friends, and they could not recognise the chrysanthemums, and thought they were some unique expensive flowers.”
“I have to thank Covid-19 for being the inspiration behind our virtual bouquets. With the circuit-breaker measures in place, it was difficult for us to obtain fresh flowers. As restrictions were starting to kick-in in other countries, and we could not import any flowers in bulk. During this time, I started illustrating virtual arrangements as a form of encouragement on our Instagram page.
But when people started inquiring about purchasing these illustrations, that’s when I knew this could become profitable. Virtual bouquets are now a permanent collection to Fleur Khloris and is available for purchase, personalisation and gifting for your loved ones.”
“For now, we’re taking in orders through our DMs on Instagram. When we receive an order, we will discuss with the customer on the type of flowers they’d like and if there’s a specific colour palette they want us to adhere to.Following that, we’ll begin the digital arrangement. Our virtual blooms are illustrated by us, though we do have images that we purchased that make up about 20 per cent of our catalogue.“
“Our creative process stems from everywhere. For example, I could be reading a fashion magazine, and the print of the clothes or the design of a pair of shoes could inspire me. Our illustration styles are really a collection of what we have stored in our memory.
Virtual bouquets also give us the chance to be creative and include variations of flowers that might be harder to get in Singapore. In this bouquet (above), we got to the forked iris, which is tough to find in Singapore. This bouquet was inspired by the cover girl of the fashion magazine Zine, and the cover girl (Dee Hsu) mentioned in the article how she always does things in a quirky way. I wanted the bouquet to embody that sense of irreverence. I mixed some common flowers with black forked irises to create something a little more unexpected. It’s quite rare to see people sending black flowers to each other unless they’re black roses.”
“A picture speaks a thousand words. Likewise for an illustration which can hold lots of memories. I hope that when my customers see their very own virtual bouquets, it will remind them to focus on the good memories they have with their loved ones.
I recently made a bouquet for a customer who requested for the message ‘walking down the aisle to you with these in my hands’. We inferred that the arrangement was made using flowers from her bridal bouquet. The wife had actually sent her husband the virtual bouquet as a pick-me-up. That was very sweet.”
“You can definitely look forward to more physical bouquets surfacing on our Instagram alongside a collection of scented candles we plan to launch at the end of May. The candles will feature citrus and relaxing scents. These soy-wax candles will feature some florals, of course, and we’re in the process of shooting and preparing for their launch.”