NAME

Holly Flora, florists

LOCATION

Los Angeles, CA

OWNERS

Holly and Becky

How did you get started?

Holly: I started dabbling with flowers in school and continued throughout high school and college.  After college I moved to NY.  I had some lofty ideas when I was 21 and I wanted to work for the Economist.  It was in NY that I started working for a florist.  It was easy for me to do, and I just sort of stuck with it.  After NY I moved to LA.  I worked for a few mediocre florists before ending up at the Velvet Garden.  I was planning on not doing it anymore, and maybe change my career but the Velvet Garden was so much fun that it really opened my eyes to what was possible.  It was a really inspirational place. The cool thing about the Velvet Garden was that if someone called in to place an order, they were given the royal treatment.  There was this deep emotional investment in what the arrangement might be.  I worked there for 7 years before eventually moving on.  My friend Miguel was opening a space, Marvimon, and he wanted me to help service the wedding venue, and that sort of launched HollyFlora.  He also named it.  He thought it would be cool, Hollywood, HollyFlora.  I was never totally on board with that name. 

Becky:  I was a hairdresser in Chicago, and in doing that I also wanted to do something else so I started bar tending.  Hair became less and less inspiring and I ended up at bars exclusively.  I had a regular in Chicago at one of my bars that was a florist, and she was basically in Holly’s situation where she would go to the flower market at 4am and by 2pm she was shot, so she asked me to help out.  It’s a little different in a walk traffic city like Chicago because people are going home from work or getting off the train, and they would come into her bucket shop, and grab a couple of stems and we would then make it into an arrangement.  When I moved to California, 10yrs ago, Holly was managing the Velvet Garden and we met there.  It was a much higher end deal than I was used to so I was learning all these new things like etiquette and design.  Eventually Holly left and when that happened while I loved the people there the inspiration for me also left, and I didn’t have to have that job.  I had 3 jobs at 3 bars so I quit Velvet Garden, and went back to the bar.  A year passed and she was so busy that she would call me and say I have a big party could you help.