With a background in fashion journalism at the London University of the Arts, Willow Crossley is now a full time floral stylist, living in Oxfordshire with her husband and three boys. We catch up with Willow to find out all about her floral fancies and family favourite spots.
Can you tell our readers a little bit more about your collaboration with OKA?
I’ve designed a line of faux flower bunches which are coming out this November. We have created three for AW16 and then have a bigger selection coming out in the spring. This collection is filled with hellebores, hydrangeas, orchids, dark red roses…quite wintery – beautiful for Christmas decorating. The next collection is a bit lighter and brighter – a bit more airy – lots of peonies, hollyhocks, irises, sweetpeas and roses. The irises are properly brilliant – you can’t believe that they’re not real! I’ve chosen vases from OKA too that I think work really well with the bunches. I adore them in the big, blue and white Chinese style urns.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
Everywhere and anywhere. It’s often the most random places like a supermarket that I suddenly see something that inspires me – a pretty biscuit wrapper or lovely olive oil label.
I often find inspiration when out and about on a walk. The woods in Wales where I grew up are my favourite place to go. I always do a lot of good dreaming and conjuring there.
The beach – I’m mad about beachcoming and love working with shells and seaweeds… Since we were tiny we’ve been going to Tresco in the Scilly Isles for the summer and this is a constant inspiration. The lichen there is unreal.
Do you have a favourite flower to work with?
I can never pick just one! Solomon Seal, peonies, foxgloves, a Santa Clause dahlia, Japanese anenomes…too many?!
Do you have any top design tips on floristry arranging at home?
Keep it relaxed, don’t be put off if your budget is small, you can create such beautiful arrangements with very few stems. Go for a walk and snip a few wayward branches and display them by themselves. Getting the vase right is just as important as the flowers you use. Generally speaking, the wider the neck of the vase, the more flowers you’re going to need. Mixing real with faux is also a good way of creating large scale arrangements for a smaller budget.
You’ve worked with some leading brands including Mulberry, Jo Malone, Liz Earle and now OKA, who is next on your wish list to work with?
I really enjoy working with British brands –they seem to get my style. Perhaps someone like Anya Hindmarch, Cabbages and Roses or Burberry. Maybe even Land Rover?! – I have visions of filling old Defenders with flowers … Beauty brands are great to work with, they tend to have good budgets so you can go crazy with the flowers – I’d love to do a fragrance campaign.
Your collaboration with OKA marks your first collection of faux flowers, is this design process any different?
Not really, no. Obviously your choice is slightly more limited with faux flowers but OKA has the most incredible range. I was allowed to just run riot using which ever stems I want to create my own bouquets so there were no restraints – they’ve let me do whatever I wanted to style-wise. We’re creating some more foliage too which I’m excited about. I use a LOT of foliage in my arrangements. Faux flowers are obviously much lower maintenance than real flowers! No throwing their petals on the floor five days in, no dirty water, no vase cleaning. Yes, they are expensive but it you work out how long you have them on display for, they work out to be much less costly in the long run.
You studied fashion journalism at the London University of the Arts, can you tell our readers a little bit about your journey into floristry?
I did Fashion Promotion, specialising in Journalism and Styling at London College of Fashion and afterwards spent years working, rather unsuccessfully, in endless fashion cupboards on magazines. I then found myself in the South of France with my then boyfriend (now husband) living on a vineyard. There wasn’t much for me to do so I starting making baskets and fabric covered books from treasures I’d found in the local brocantes and started selling them on the beaches in St Tropez. I started a blog at the same time from which my first book, The Art of Handmade Living, sprung a year later. We then moved back home to London, with our first baby, Wolf and I started writing my next book Inspire, the art of living with Nature. In Inspire, one of the chapters is all about flowers. I realised how happy working on it made me – so much more so than anything else I was doing – so I stopped everything else ( interior design and personal shopping) and focused on flowers. I started by doing one of my best friend’s wedding flowers, which was terrifying – totally thrown in the deep end but I adored it. I haven’t looked back since.
As a working Mum of three, what do you do to relax and unwind?
I’m not very good at relaxing. I have to force myself to sit still and switch off. A good boxset, something highbrow like Nashville or Scandal can glue me to the sofa for hours on end though.
I love food. Eating it, reading about it, baking cakes, drooling over cookbooks- our family life completely revolves around what we’re going to eat next.
Walking is my best way of clearing my head, even if just for ten minutes, really fast up and down the road. I have to do that a couple of times every day.
When you are not busy working, what do you enjoy doing with the family?
We have a pub, the Bull Inn in Charlbury where we spend a lot of time. My husband Charlie runs it and it’s become our second home really. We designed it to be very homely so it doesn’t feel like a traditional pub and the food is delicious.
In a few sentences, describe an average day in the life of Willow Crossley?
Chaos! My work is so varied so no day is ever the same really. We have three boys -18 months, 4 and 6 years old – and I’m woken up by them anytime from 530- 630am. I do breakfast, school run etc and then come home to whatever I’m doing work wise that day. I’ll either be in my studio which is at home, conditioning and making arrangements or recently I’ve been locked away in my office writing my latest book ‘Flourish’. I get bored very quickly and often stop functioning unless I have a change of scenery so might go to our pub to see my husband and see if they need me there. I do the decorating and design there and spend one day a week helping with bits and bobs. The boys finish school in the afternoon and if I’m not away on a job I’ll hang out with them until they go to bed. I’ll carry on with my work when they’re asleep or make supper with Chaz if he’s home from the pub.
You live in Oxfordshire, where are your favourite spots to Eat/Drink/Shop?
The Bull Inn in Charlbury to eat, sleep and drink.
Worton Organic garden and café for delicious coffee and home grown flowers.
Soho Farm House for all of the above.
Pilates. My lovely friend Chloe Hodgson has just moved down here from London and is the most brilliant instructor. www.chloespilates.com
Beauty – Enhance in Woodstock
Hair. Amelia Smith.
Cakes. One of my great friends Mel has just started a cake company called Melanie Jane Bakes, they’re made to order, seriously beautiful ‘occasion’ cakes. @melaniejanebakes
Who inspires you?
My mother, the painter, Kate Corbett – Winder. She’s just extraordinary and very good at everything. She’s paints, gardens, writes books, looks after us all… We speak five times a day. She’s incredible.
Anya Hindmarch. She’s like a real life wonder woman. Five children, supersonic business, taking over the world. Cool as a cucumber. Serious inspiration,
What’s your motto?
It’s all about the detail.