Raysa Farah found floristry as a child, pottering around her father’s flower-filled garden. “Since I was a very little girl, I wanted to be a florist,” she says. “I literally begged my parents to study it after I left school, but they persuaded me toward a more conventional path.” So she took one, earning a psychology degree and a stable career in the NHS. The flowers waited. Today LK Verdant, her luxury floristry studio, is pruned to perfection, with a growing Instagram following and features in the pages of Vogue and Grazia.
The one-month business
The turn came from her husband. “When I met Mohammed at twenty-three, he encouraged my love of flowers.” She had said, half in passing, “one day when I’m old and retired, I’ll fulfill my dream of being a florist.” He had the business set up for her a month later. She started small, posting posies of stems picked from her father’s garden on Instagram, and the orders flew in. Soon she was too busy to do both and had to choose. “I took the risk and left my very well-paid, credible job at the NHS. Sounds cliche, I know. I haven’t looked back since.”
Leaving was not easy. Her parents had been proud of the NHS career, everything they had hoped for; she was getting married, taking on financial responsibilities of her own, and pouring every spare penny of her savings into materials and trademarks. “I was anxious about whether all the hard work that went into those savings would give me a return.” The ward left her with tools she still uses. “I learned to be super organized, and I’m still strict on timekeeping. And I learned to work well with others, and that you should always listen, then listen again.”
Raysa poured every spare penny into flowers. She hasn’t looked back since.
Bespoke, and brave
She was one of the first businesses in her area to take a high-end, on-trend approach to floristry, and leaned hard into her own quirky style. Social media did the rest, and she is blunt about its role. “Use it as your main source of marketing. In year one I worked with a lot of influencers and held blogger events with brands like Kiehl’s, Elizabeth Arden, and L’Oreal. My most engaged followers tend to be my most loyal clients.” She adds a warning she has clearly earned. “Instagram can be supportive, but being raw and authentic also attracts criticism. You need thick skin to work with the public.”
Ask what bespoke means to her and the answer is a list of small, exacting promises: the highest-quality product, clear communication, going above and beyond to source exactly what a client wants, and delivering on time. “Most importantly, it means a personal touch. Each bouquet is unique. One is never the same as another.”
There is one more line on her creative resume, and it came from the hardest place. When her little boy was diagnosed with cancer, she could not find anything to help his four-year-old brother, Adam, understand why his sibling was losing his hair and gaining weight from the medication. So she wrote her own children’s book, The Cub Without a Mane. “Writing came very naturally, and it brought me a lot of comfort to turn something so challenging into something positive. I want children to understand they are special, even if they look physically different from their friends.” Her favorite flower, for the record, is the David Austin rose. Her whole wedding was covered in them, and they smell incredible.
LK Verdant is at lkverdant.com and @lkverdant.
