Alex Vaughan and Quinn Kiesow
FLWR
ALEX
Creative direction and design lead. Co-founder of FLWR Shop. Alex has spent the last 6 years developing FLWR's unique style, drawing on her 16 years of experience working for the best in the industry.
QUINN
Operations, logistics and rigging guru. Co-founder of FLWR Shop. Quinn is a jack of all trades with an engineer's brain. He's a natural leader and problem solver with excellent people skills.
Through the years they both worked their way up in what is one of the last apprentice style industries left in America, gaining knowledge, and fostering a passion for unique and elegant flowers as well as thoughtful design. They worked in LA, Miami, San Francisco and New York City. With the knowledge they had gained over the years and the desire to stake out their own slice of the pie, they moved to East Nashville to put down roots. Those roots manifested in the form of the sweetest little girl named Johnnie.
They wanted to bring their passion for thoughtful design, excellent customer service and their knowledge of what flowers could be to Nashville. And so FLWR Shop was born in 2016, created in a 100 year old classic four square victorian in Five Points. They created a beautiful plant and flower shop on the lower level and lived upstairs. FLWR shop quickly became a mainstay of the East Nashville community and soon spread its influence beyond East Nashville, offering daily delivery of fresh flowers throughout all of Nashville. In FLWR Shop’s first year they were picked by Nashville Scene’s Editor’s as Best New Flower Shop and the following year won the reader’s poll for Best Flower Shop in Nashville.
The original shop in Five Points, later destroyed by the 2020 tornado.
Our Belle Meade Retail Location
Unfortunately, their first location was completely destroyed in the 2020 tornado. Quinn, Alex and Johnnie thankfully made it down to the basement with their dog Lucy just in time. All they had built was wiped away in a matter of seconds, but thankfully they were almost finished building out what would have been their second location in Belle Meade.
Thanks to an enormous amount of help and support from the community of Nashville, they were able to get back to work just days after the tornado struck. They will always be enormously grateful to Nashville for doing so much to help get them back on their feet.
A month after the tornado they opened their beautiful Belle Meade location along with a production studio to handle their daily delivery and event orders.
Today, Flwr Shop is on the other side of that tornado and (almost) on the other side of a pandemic. They have a retail location in Belle Meade and a full production studio in East that creates gorgeous floral arrangements for delivery all across Nashville on a daily basis. Their new production studio has enabled them to do bigger, more ambitious events and take on more events than ever before. They also have plans in place to bring back an East Nashville retail location in the coming year.
SHOW NOTES
Starting in the floral industry? Make the most of your experiences along your journey. It’s always good to learn how other businesses work or don’t. There is so much to learn if you're willing to make the most of that time.
If you’re able, it might be worth moving to other cities and working at florists or farms to gain more of these experiences from other businesses.
Branding can be an important part of finding and creating a place in your local market.
Branding also creates awareness of your style and lets your customers know what they can expect when ordering flowers from you.
Part of setting yourself apart from other businesses is always striving to create new looks with your flowers
