Amanda Luu
Studio Mondine
Amanda Luu is the founder of Studio Mondine and floral educator specializing in Japanese ikebana and the influence of western floral design. Studio Mondine is a floral design studio based in San Francisco, California. We are a team of designers, producers, and educators united by an insatiable curiosity of the natural world. As a design studio with a diversity of experiences in hospitality, fine art, production, and fabrication, we endeavor to surprise, delight, and invite you into the splendor of the natural world.
Our visual language is deferential to the abundance that surrounds, and the changing of the seasons -- made possible with support from the resilient network of growers, foragers, suppliers, and craftspeople we call friends. Astute students of flowers will notice the influences of Constance Spry and Sofu Teshigahara in our work-- Spry for her effusive use of overlooked materials, and Teshigahara for his reinvention of form, time and time again. Both held that flowers should be for everyone-- a belief we maintain as well.
Show Notes
Image by M K Sadler
When you’re working with flowers you are working within the realm of hospitality.
Invest in hardgoods like vases and containers that are versatile and reusable to cut down on waste.
Ikebana is about the relationship between man, earth, and heaven. Remember you’re in a conversation with your products when you approach the workbench.
Event work is a celebration and a moment in time with it’s own feeling and emotions.
When sourcing locally, don’t forget to consider food farms, wholesale nurseries, garden centers, and of course flower farms.
Approach pricing holistically. It’s not just the material overhead it’s also the hard cost of opportunity, like being able to set aside time to be with family and friends and the cost of innovation, meaning taking your business into the future.
It’s important to keep in mind the global cost of everything we do when creating a sustainable business.
