I realized that my job at the design agency had disconnected me from my inner self, and so I decided it was time for a change it was time to pursue what makes me happy. I had been working as an art director for 20 years and suddenly found myself in this traumatic situation, questioning my life. A friend offered me one just after the Paris attacks of 2015, in which I lost a colleague. No, I don’t, but I find the smell of a garden rose extraordinary. The resulting bouquets look organic, as if swept up from a wildflower meadow.įorgive me if this is like asking a parent to choose between their children, but do you have a favorite flower?

She finds inspiration as much in the landscapes of the southwest of France-where she spent her childhood summers-as she does in the minimalism of ikebana, the Japanese art of sculptural flower arrangement. Though she still has a penchant for dried bouquets, she now incorporates seasonal cut flowers and other greenery from small local producers, bridging the gap between the ephemeral and the lasting, the fresh and the frozen-in-time. She established her floral atelier, Une Maison dans les Arbres, in 2018, after a stint running Paris’ first dried flower boutique in a corner of L’Officine Universelle Buly’s Marais shop. Yasumoto worked as a designer before retraining in floristry at Paris’ École des Fleuristes in 2016. On the wall hangs a half-completed weaving she’s making with pressed wildflowers and linen, while behind her, a floor-to-ceiling window opens onto a leafy courtyard.

All around her are colorful floral arrangements, some finished and ready to go to her clients, others still waiting for that final touch-a bit of foliage, say, or a showpiece bloom. “I live amid flowers,” the Japanese French floral designer says, sitting in her loft-style home in the Parisian suburb of Aubervilliers. Not everyone would want to live in their work space, but in Miyoko Yasumoto’s case, it’s an appealing setup.

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