Studio Visit: At Home with Berlin's Star Florist, Annett Kuhlmann - Gardenista
Celebrity florist Annett Kuhlmann’s stylish Berlin flower shop, Marsano, feels like the inevitable conclusion to a childhood spent picking flowers to make posies to sell on the road in front of her parents’ farm in a small village near Hamburg. Photography by Anna Rose via Freunde von Freunden except where noted. Recently Freunde von Freunden writer Sarah Weinknecht visited Kuhlmann at home in the Mitte district in central Berlin, where her small balcony garden was in bloom. Amid the window boxes and flowering vines on her terrace, Kuhlmann described how the profession of being a florist in Berlin is evolving. Kuhlmann recently shared flower arranging tips with UK homewares site Urbanara: “Consider what furniture or statement pieces you have and select flowers to either match or contrast their colors and shapes Try to work with high and low proportions in the vases.” When you’re arranging flowers, “the leaves on the lower portion of the stem should be removed from the cut flower,” says Kuhlmann. Kuhlmann began her apprenticeship as a florist at Absolute Flowers in London, where owner Hayley Newsteadt taught her about color and form. For instance, we would have never used tulips and hyacinths during the summer time,” says Kuhlmann. On the wall in her Berlin flat is a wire hanger turned into sculpture. Fat black dahlias carry the day. Kuhlmann founded Marsano with two business partners in 2006; at the shop in Prenzlauer Berg, employees are encouraged to work a 40-hour week in four days (rather than five) so they can find time to pursue their passions. “I actually hate flower photography! Besides the pictures of Robert Mapplethorpe and a few others, it is so cliché,” says Kuhlmann. That said, she recently shot a Polaroid series of bouquets that celebrities send to each other. Curtains of flowers for Dior’s Fashion Week runway show in 2012. Photograph via Shaadi Curry. At Dior’s runway show, the walls are covered in peonies, dahlias, carnations, roses, delphiniums, and goldenrod. In here, every flower possesses a personal language and a place to unfold,” says Kuhlmann.