Today, I’m delighted to feature an interview with Australian based florist, Matthew Landers.
Can you tell us about yourself and your floristry background?
I’m 29 and I’ve been working full-time in floristry since the day after I turned 15. I grew up in my mother’s florist business (Linda Landers). Playing with flowers from a young age, at 14 I knew that high school just wasn’t for me. So I started a weekend job at a florist outside the family business and started competing in regional competitions.
Finishing school at 15, I immediately started working full-time and several months later, began completing my formal qualifications. At 17, with several competitions under my belt, my mother helped me into my very first retail florist shop.
Where do you get inspiration for your floral design?
Modern art, homewares and interior design. My biggest thing is colour. I truly believe colour can make or break a design. You’ll often find me meandering in an art supplies store, aside from shedding tears for pantone shades of apricot and arguing the difference between white and pearl in my head, I find art stores have my eyes spinning with ideas. Looking at different mediums, textures, colours, how things look in different lighting. Interiors also play a big part in a conceptual stage.
For me, when I see a new style of furniture or a new homeware trend (whether it’s a metallic or fluoro), I start thinking about how my clients are going to be changing their house immediately and I’m going to be the first port of call to ensure it’s accessorised with the matching blooms.
How would you describe your style?
A lot of appreciation for the materials. Attention-to-detail. Driven by colour. Ethereal and masculine. When I used to compete a lot, my style became really defined. I would travel interstate for national competitions and I would never pre-order flowers. I loved the challenge of arriving in a foreign city and working with what was available or what was put in front of me. This allowed me to appreciate the beauty of the materials, study their form, line, texture, colour and see what materials that I would perhaps not normally use could bring to a design. 
What is your favourite flower?
This really depends which hat I’m wearing! I have three answers. As a luxury retailer and floral designer catering to large scale events – ‘Phalaenopsis Orchids’. They offer so much and can only look ‘expensive’ in a design. As an Educator – ‘Bouvardia’. Students always marvel at its unique and impressive prism form. How something so strong in microscopic form can be such a delicate flower. Personally – ‘Stephanotis’. I can never, ever get enough of it.
Could you tell us about your school and stores in Australia?
When I was 17, I bought my first business. That then evolved over the years into several retail stores. With the help of winning lots of competitions and getting constant media attention, this grew into a very successful overall business. In 2009 (aged 23), an opportunity was presented to me to live and work overseas. This was perfect timing as Linda (my mother aka business partner) wanted to retire and someone had offered to buy our business.
In 2012, back in Perth, I had itchy hands again and noticed there was a big gap in the market. Fortunate enough to have maintained my profile within the industry, it was a simple transition back into floristry. I decided to open a Matthew Landers store in Victoria Park (inner Perth, Western Australia) and run some little hobby classes on the side. Well, in 2014-15, the demand for classes got bigger and bigger and the school started to grow much quicker than I had anticipated. I decided to host an international guest and tour Australia and also host my own workshops outside of Perth. I also acquired a second location to cater for the evolving business.
In 2015, I knew it was time to expand again and in a big way. I opened a flagship store in Perth CBD, visually unparalleled to any other florist in Perth. I hosted Joseph Massie for an Australian Tour and again, conducted more workshops and demonstrations of my own outside of Perth. Then late last year, I moved the Academy into a new purpose-built premises almost 7 times the size of its original premises.
In conjunction with the expansion of the Matthew Landers Academy, I also launched the Australian School of Floristry. From what I originally imagined would be a few little classes here and there and a shop to keep me busy, has turned into a huge retail business. We are Western Australia’s largest floristry training provider, seeing over 300 students a year in a variety of Hobby, Industry, Advanced and Bespoke Courses. 
