The Blooming Vanguard: Neda Afi’s Floral Renaissance in Hollywood
In Los Angeles, a city defined by its ability to stage and restage beauty, floral design has long existed on the margins — part embellishment, part afterthought. But in the work of Neda Afi, floristry steps into the foreground. Through Lily of the Valley, her Orange County-based studio, Afi offers a distinct visual language: one that treats flowers not as decoration, but as a medium. The result is a body of work that resists ephemerality, insisting instead on presence, form, and authorship.
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Neda Afi’s Floral Art
Afi’s approach is shaped by cultural duality. Born in Iran and raised within the intricate iconographies of Persian art, her early encounters with flowers were domestic and ritualistic, shared with her mother through dried arrangements and hand-painted glass petals. Relocating to the United States, she brought those references with her, gradually transforming them into something that speaks fluently to both personal memory and the contemporary aesthetics of the American West.
Her often large-scale, sculptural, and emotionally charged compositions signal a deliberate move away from floristry as passive ornament. "I was never interested in prettiness for its own sake," Afi notes. "The goal was always impact — visual, emotional, spatial."
Beyond the Vase
While Afi’s installations can be found at weddings and private events, her practice increasingly intersects with fashion. At Fleurs de Villes in 2024, she was awarded Best in Show for a series of wearable floral designs: a shoulder-draped cascade of garden roses, a structured peony hat, and a handbag rendered entirely in botanical material. These were not accessories but sculptural interventions — images that lingered long after the petals faded.
Her pieces have since appeared in editorial campaigns and on red carpets, but Afi remains ambivalent about categorization. "People ask if I’m a florist or a designer," she says. "The truth is, I’m building with what grows. The rest is interpretation."
Neda Afi’s Immersive Approach
Certified in event planning, Afi also works as a spatial designer, where florals serve not as focal points but as part of a more expansive orchestration of light, texture, and mood. Her strength lies in the coherence of her vision — a cohesion that allows a space to feel composed and inhabited. "I’m less interested in spectacle than memory," she says. "If someone remembers how the air felt, how the space moved — that’s success."
A Material Ethics
Amid increasing scrutiny of the waste produced by the floral and event industries, Afi’s studio has adopted a clear stance. Lily of the Valley uses reusable packaging and has begun implementing preservation techniques to reduce organic waste. Afi’s long-term goal is to transition the studio to a fully waste-free operation by 2039 — a timeline reflecting ambition and realism. Her interest in sustainability is structural, not symbolic. "There’s a tendency in this industry to gesture at responsibility without changing the system itself," she says. "But design means nothing if it ignores its consequences."
Community as Practice
Though her studio’s work is frequently visible at high-profile events, Afi continues to root her practice in community initiatives: mentoring young creatives, supporting nonprofit organizations, and leading workshops emphasizing floristry as a form of storytelling. Her flowers may speak in the language of fashion and spectacle, but their intent is often interpersonal. "Floral design can be deeply intimate," she reflects. "It helps articulate what’s difficult to name."
The Future of Floral Design
Afi’s vision for the future is not centered on scale, but on infrastructure. She imagines a collaborative network of florists and designers, a shared studio space that operates more like an atelier than a retail enterprise. She also hopes to foster more direct collaborations between florists and fashion designers — an intersection she sees as fertile but underexplored.
In a cultural landscape that frequently values speed and replication, Afi’s work insists on the slow, the specific, the hand-touched. It invites reconsidering floristry not as embellishment, but as an applied art: material, ephemeral, and politically aware. Because in Afi’s practice, a flower is never just a flower. It is a decision—a way of seeing, arranging, and remembering.
Credits
Subject: Neda Afi – Lily of the Valley
Agency: Firebird PR Agency
Text: Annabelle Kajbaf
Photography: Arezoo Jalali
Creative Direction: Ambika B. Sanjana
Assistant Creative Director: Bita Afi
Models: Mahlagha Jaberi, Paulina Breanne
Styling: Sky J. Naval
Hair & Makeup: Jason Rivas
