The floral designer at the top of fashion’s call sheet 

In India’s crowded landscape of floral vendors, where carnations wrapped in cellophane have long passed for a grand gesture, Interflora’s rise feels almost improbable. A luxury floral brand that moves like a fashion house? That orchestrates bouquets with the same attention to detail as couture embroidery? And, more unusually, one that’s become as integral to a designer’s vision as a moodboard? Not exactly the typical florist origin story. But Interflora is not your typical florist. 

While Interflora was founded in the UK in the 1920s, when Mumbai-based Anuja Joshi set up the India outlet in 2017 she was motivated by a simple, almost romantic frustration: why couldn’t the flowers in India look and last like the ones abroad? “I was always enamoured by the quality, variety and shelf life of flowers whenever we travelled internationally,” she recalls. For her, bringing Interflora to India wasn’t just about filling vases—it was about filling a gap and turning florals from something transactional to something emotional. From a commodity to an experience. 

It all started at Lakmé Fashion Week in 2018, with an LGBTQ+ pride-themed photo backdrop that was anything but typical. Interflora built a neutral beige brick wall and layered it with bold, asymmetrical cascades of handmade foam roses in vibrant colours. The setup had to last for seven days, so they used silk flowers and designed it to be more than just a backdrop. “The idea was to make it interactive,” says Joshi. “We didn’t want people to just stand against it, but to sit in the middle, pose, play. At that point, these organic, asymmetrical floral cascades were very new to the country, and we were the only brand doing that.”

From there, the brand slipped easily into the fashion circuit, not by chasing spectacle but by reading the room. That journey continued with their collaboration for Shyamal & Bhumika on their runway show, a turning point in how they approached florals within the framework of fashion. With just 15 minutes to bring the ramp to life, they learned that in this world, precision was everything.  

Since then, they’ve worked with fashion royalty from India and abroad—from Gucci and Dior to Manish Malhotra, Sabyasachi, and Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla, creating jaw-droppingly lavish arrangements and floral walls. That kind of roster might tempt any brand into cookie-cutter luxury: the same peonies, the same white roses, the same tired opulence. Interflora didn’t go that way. If anything, they leaned into difference.

But the brief is only half the challenge. Execution is where Interflora veers into high-wire-act territory. Hydrangeas and tulips in 48-degree Jaipur heat? Check. Wild berries and sci-fi foliage that feel like they belong in a Ridley Scott film? Done.

The most memorable collaborations often hinge on this tension between aesthetic excess and logistical limitation. Take, for instance, Amit Aggarwal’s store launch at DLF Emporio in Delhi, a project that leaned fully into the surreal. The brief was alien-inspired, drawing on Aggarwal’s signature sculptural futurism. The floral grazing table—now a staple at fashionable events—was envisioned as a living artefact from another galaxy, requiring Interflora to step outside even their own playbook. “We sourced wild African berries and blooms with gnarly textures so peculiar, they felt almost sentient. Think claw-like formations, pod-like faces—florals that seemed plucked from a sci-fi dreamscape. These unearthly beauties became the centrepiece of this dramatic grazing table, echoing the eerie elegance of his installation,” says Joshi. The result was part art, part theatre—an immersive experience that blurred the boundaries between fashion, flora, and fantasy. 

The Sabyasachi collaboration, on the other hand, veered in a completely different direction: maximalism grounded in Indian heritage. For his Mumbai store launch in 2023, Interflora co-created what has now become a whispered benchmark in fashion-meets-flora storytelling—the grazing table. Unlike most high-visibility floral setups, this wasn’t large in scale. But it was immense in detail. At its centre stood a single imported orange plant. Not for its rarity, but for the vertical drama it added to the table. Around it sprawled a meticulously curated collection of Indian wooden dolls, miniature porcelain sculptures, wild foliage, and hyper-specific blooms, many of them locally sourced.

The flowers changed across three events: orange marigolds, juhi, mogra, and rajnigandha for the first, an all-white palette of Indian roses, white lotuses, homegrown hydrangeas, and woven jalis for the second, and a final flourish of red roses, green hydrangeas, staghorn plants, orchids, and syngonium for the third. Sabyasachi’s brief was clear: the flowers should feel as Indian as the jewellery on display. “The challenge, and the joy, lie in crafting bespoke narratives for each designer, ensuring that every arrangement is an unmistakable extension of their creative identity,” Joshi says. In Sabyasachi’s world, where every garment feels like a museum piece, their floral arrangement found a visual frequency that matched: operatic, romantic, deeply Indian in spirit.  

What’s notable is Interflora’s malleable approach and their refusal to build a visual signature. Unlike most floral experts who become recognisable by a motif or palette, Interflora’s entire brand DNA is about flexibility and how they can adapt to fashion houses that come with hyper-specific aesthetic dos and don’ts. 

“Each brand provides us with a lookbook that’s sacrosanct—a floral bible, if you will. It specifies which flowers are permissible and which are off-limits.” Joshi explains. “Some brands forbid hydrangeas entirely, while others demand very particular rose varieties—like the Dusty Miller or Hermosa—refusing to accept just any shade of pink.” Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla, for example, have a well-known love for florals but with a very specific vision. Tropical leaves are a hard no. Instead, they prefer wild foliage sourced from deep jungle environments that give their arrangements a raw, untamed elegance. It’s drama but refined. 

But it’s more than just reacting to briefs. It’s about crafting and setting the mood. Joshi stays on top of the evolving design language, often steering clients toward something more sculptural, more adventurous, more unexpected. “We’re now witnessing the thrilling collision of fine art and floristry,” she says. “Today’s most compelling arrangements abandon symmetry and predictability for sculptural, architectural compositions that command attention like gallery installations.” 

She’s also noticing a shift in colour and material play. “Colour-blocking has replaced gentle gradients —bold, confident juxtapositions that create visual drama,” she says. “Meanwhile, materials once considered peripheral now take centre stage: wild botanical elements, unexpected architectural wonders that create textural conversations alongside traditional blooms.” 

Before Interflora, Joshi helped launch Victorious kids Educares, Pune’s first IB school, “Education taught me systems, empathy, consistency,” she says. “You’re shaping experiences, building trust.” At Interflora, that translated into SOPs for design quality, extensive florist training programmes, and a people-first company culture.  

It’s also what allowed the brand to introduce ‘Western-style’ arrangements without alienating local sensibilities. A marigold doesn’t need to be strung in a garland to feel Indian, Joshi argues. It can be sculptural, architectural, abstract while still holding emotional and cultural weight. Their Dior table settings, for instance, may have leaned Parisian in restraint, but 70 per cent of the blooms were grown in India. 

While their aesthetic often nods to European styling, Interflora’s sourcing is deeply rooted in India. Around 75 per cent of their flowers come from domestic farms in Bengaluru, Pune, and the north-east, thanks to long-term partnerships that ensure traceability and freshness. The rest are imported from Holland, Ecuador, and Thailand. “We always say we’re a brand with international design sensibilities and an Indian heart,” Joshi explains. And that fusion between local authenticity and global polish might just be what keeps Interflora at the top of fashion’s call sheet.