Entertaining

Meet your maker: florist Sophia Kaplan

Tree peonies, dahlias and dogwood blossoms are on the menu for the festive table.

By Maggie Scardifield
Tree peonies, dahlias and dogwood blossoms are on the menu for the festive table.
In 2013 Sophia Kaplan quit her coordinator job at a creative agency and moved to Paris to take up floristry. The opportunity to hang out with plants and flowers every day was just the kind of time out she needed, it turned out. These days when she's not on holiday picking wildflowers in the French Alps, she's wrangling branches of dogwood and crab-apple with dusty dahlias or clematis from her kitchen table in Sydney's Surry Hills.
What's the Sophia Kaplan signature?
I love using living plants rather than cut flowers and try to encourage clients to make this a part of their brief - it's a more natural style and lets the flowers be more themselves. And I use lots of strange-shaped foliage.
What is the most fulfilling part of your work?
To bring a sense of nature into your day in a way that focuses your attention on it is exciting, therapeutic and beautiful. That and constant change: there's no chance for any flower to become dull because they're never around for long enough.
Do you have any favourite blooms to work with over summer?
Beautifully scented garden roses, tree peonies and delicate flannel flowers. Dahlias will be peaking in December and will suit any occasion, too, and the dogwood blossoms will be turning into baby fruit, which is perfect for Christmas lunch or dinner parties.
SHAREPIN
  • undefined: Maggie Scardifield