Fruit Salad Flowers

Like many businesses born in the last year, Fruit Salad was a lockdown baby. I can’t remember the exact moment of realization that I wanted to start my own floristry business but I do remember thinking it was perfect culmination of my interests, passions and skills and it soon felt I had finally found a career path that felt 100% me. 

When I come to think of it, Fruit Salad was born out of inspiration. Overall, lockdown was an emotional rollercoaster for me, as it was for most people, but I am pleased to say that it inspired me to take a new direction in my life. Spending lockdown at my parent’s house (which was about March - June in Scotland), I was helping my Mum in the garden and watching flowers grow from teeny tiny seeds into beautiful bountiful blooms, there is no feeling like it. It might sound a little cheesy, but I had never felt so passionate and excited about something before. The variety, the colours, the textures, the shapes, the scents! The flowers provided me with endless joy and it inspired me so much that I knew I had  to make it into a career. 

Fruit Salad is still young and a little baby in the floristry world. This is often scary and daunting, but also exciting that so much lays ahead of me. There are so many inspiring florists that are paving the way for contemporary floristry around the world, which is how I would categorize my floral style. I love how flowers are being interpreted in a brand new way other than a bouquet of a few flower types with foliage. Flowers are being arranged into true works of art and it is so exciting to see. A new wave of modern floristry is seeing different flower types and colours being arranged together that would have previously be frowned upon. I am constantly being inspired by other florists across the globe and the works of floral art they continually produce. I think it is so important to keep pushing the boundaries and discovering new, weird and wonderful ways that we can interpret ‘floristry’ beyond what we traditionally think of. Constance Spry, arguably one of the most influential florists in British floristry, did exactly this in the first half of the 20th century. I admire how she was unconfined by traditional floristry rules at the time and created her own waves in the floral industry. Her attitude and her approach to shake up the norm is so inspiring to me. Going further back in history, I am always in awe of the Flemish floral still life paintings from the 1600s. They are so indulgent and colourful, with beautiful big blooms. I have always wanted to recreate a painting into real life, I think it would be gasp worthy!

At Fruit Salad, our work is undoubtedly mostly inspired by colour. It might sound quite simple, but when you really start to study colour and discover the most divine colour palettes that you never even knew would work together you realise that it never gets boring! I have had always had an appreciation for colour, but since working with flowers my brain has been tuned to constantly seek out colour palettes in every day life. I might be walking down the street and see a bright orange traffic cone beside some pink graffiti and get excited and take a photo. The colours that flowers naturally produce too are a constant amazement to me. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that genuine neon colours can be produced by nature (neon pink zinnias are a personal favourite). I bought Putnum & Putnum’s Flower Colour Theory book earlier this year and it has become a bit of a bible for me. 

I think it goes without saying that as a florist I am constantly on Pinterest. I save pictures of a wide variety of things that inspire me. This can range from a fabulous outfit from a high fashion collection to a living room with perfectly eclectic style. I also have a fascination for old style packaging and old shop fronts (particularly in New York). The inspiration doesn’t necessarily translate directly to a way a floral arrangement may look visually, but more so, the feel and approach of my business. It can be quite hard to explain in words, but for me it really helps me understand what my business is and where I want to take it. I believe you can find inspiration in absolutely anything. 

The name, Fruit Salad, was actually inspired by a British sweetie (or candy I should say) here in the UK. It is a sort of orangey- peach and pink, which are two of my favourite colours to use. To me the name connotes colourful, fun and cheeriness, which is what I hope to embody in my brand. I always wanted a name that you wouldn’t automatically know that it was a floristry business, which I think it does perfectly. 

As a young business there is still so much for Fruit Salad to experience and learn, but I am so excited for the future and will continually be inspired by my surroundings to keep going and explore new approaches to floristry. 

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Fruit Salad Flowers is a modern floristry studio founded by Emily Clift during the first lockdown in 2020. Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, Fruit Salad always looks to create fun, unique and colourful arrangements. Fruit Salad likes to push the boundaries of traditional floristry by offering a unique combination of blooms and colour ways