Founded three years ago in Auckland by Isabel Johnston and Lydia Reusser, Isadia is a widely respected floral design studio with a knack for naturalistic, artful bouquets and arrangements.

You can see their work brightening up many top retail and hospitality spaces, including Onslow, The Hotel Britomart and Deadly Ponies, and they’ve worked with Gucci, Mecca and Tiffany & Co on local events.

Originally working out of their respective garages, the duo moved to a space on Anzac Avenue in February 2021 – which they shared with gallery Coastal Signs. This week, they’ve opened the doors to their new design studio in Mount Eden, with big plans for the ivy-covered heritage building. You can stop by on the ground floor and browse the selection of blooms for an on-the-spot bouquet. Upstairs is where Johnston and Reusser create their client orders, and where they are looking forward to holding workshops.

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Here, they tell Broadsheet a little more about the move.

Why Mount Eden?
We didn’t actually seek out a space in Mount Eden, it was a quite serendipitous change. Coastal Signs gallery (which we shared our previous space with) needed to expand and just as they broke the news to us, another florist approached us at the flower market. She mentioned she was leasing a space she no longer needed and thought it would suit us. We were very fortunate with the timing, as it is extremely difficult to find a central Auckland space that can function well for floristry businesses that are also affordable.

How was the move? Bet it was a mission with all of your bloomin’ bits and pieces?
It was indeed an absolute mission! We moved on Friday, which involved getting all of our studio things into the space and upstairs so we could scrub, paint and get the tradies through to fix up various bits and pieces – so we were ready to open up and function as per normal on Monday morning. This was all while juggling the 5am auction, planning, and installation of four events, a wedding and our regular orders. We couldn’t have done it without our amazing team Amy Laidler and Cara Piacun; they are the glue that holds us together during the crazy times.

What do you love about the space?
The heritage building itself is warm and inviting from the street with an ivy-covered brick exterior, which is lovely to walk into every morning. The site was originally a bakery and has since served as studios and homes for different creatives. It is a well-lived-in building and we are looking forward to breathing some new life into it. Downstairs is our storefront, open on weekdays to customers, where the floral magic will happen. We are excited about the possibilities for our upstairs space, too.

How has Isadia evolved since you launched three years ago?
We have come a long way since working out of our respective garages. Having navigated Isadia through Covid and the other various trials of the past three years, we have learnt a lot – to say the least. Neither of us had much experience running a business and learning to balance the many spinning plates has been huge; we have implemented many systems for efficiency and time management and a focus on us and our team’s mental and physical health is hugely important.

Our floral style is still artistic and naturalistic, letting the flowers speak for themselves, however, we started out mainly focusing on weddings and our online store and we now do a lot more events – which we love!

What overarching trends, purchasing habits and occasions are you seeing for florals?
For weddings, we are seeing a lot more couples wanting to move away from the more traditional weddings – which we love. Intimate “backyard” weddings with fun floral moments are our favourite brief. We get that life is incredibly expensive at the moment and appreciate that flowers are a luxury item, so we are deeply grateful for all our customers who trust us to bring their varied briefs to life.

For events, we are seeing more requests for en masse florals [meaning only one flower is used repeatedly to make the bouquet] and lots of colour; we find people come to us for our specific aesthetic, which is so nice.

Seems like a great place for events – are you excited about this aspect?
Yes! We already have a few bookings for workshops and are excited to be able to expand our offerings. We have lots of exciting plans; she just needs a bit of a makeover. Watch this space.

Isadia
1A Kelly Street, Mount Eden
+64 27 296 7349

Hours
Mon to Fri 10am–3pm or by appointment

isadia.co.nz