Emily Thompson

The wild, uncompromising beauty of Vermont, where Emily Thompson was born in 1973, seems to define the style of everything she does. Hailed as the “world’s best florist” by none other than Shane Connolly, florist by royal appointment to the British monarchy, Thompson attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA, where she earned her MFA in sculpture. She later moved to New York City, her current place of residence, where she “fell in with a rough crowd of thorny brambles and made it her mission to bring them to light”.

Emily prefers to use local materials, and her style underscores the power of nature to impose its beauty. Her designs often combine flowers with seed pods, fruit, branches and weeds rarely seen in more conventional floral art. With a special penchant for juxtaposing materials, Thompson freely admits her love of the ruin-inspired aesthetic and often plays at staging faux ruins, so skilfully that they seem to have sprung from nature itself.

Her list of clients includes distinguished institutions like the White House, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Whitney Museum of American Art; brands such as Ferrari, Chanel, Giorgio Armani, Google, Tiffany & Co. and Volvo; and some of the most prestigious publications in the world, including Architectural Digest, The New York Times, Vogue, Wall Street Journal and Forbes.