Viral florist Bryce Heyworth has kicked off this year’s Subi Blooms festival in spectacular style, unveiling a striking sculpture of yellow blooms featuring a mix of iconic West Australian flora.
“A festival like this is such a rare thing,” Mr Heyworth said.
“It brings together the community, mothers and flowers, and so it feels really special to be a part of.”
Mr Heyworth is the founder and creative director of Sydney’s September Studio and his bold, sculptural floral designs and signature dance videos are well known among his more than 1.6 million Instagram followers.
This year, the Sydney florist has teamed up Perth floral studio Fox & Rabbit to create the entrance piece of the weekend-long festival trail, injecting his distinct vision to create a sea of towering floral sculptures.
“A big part of my work is looking at shape and texture, and showcasing florals in a non-traditional way that feels a bit ‘other-worldly’,” Mr Heyworth said.
With a focus on this year’s theme “Flora Aurora”, the piece is flooded in yellow and orange flowers, born and bred from WA’s landscape.
“WA has a pretty outstanding climate to grow flowers and natives, and so it was important for us to showcase that,” he said.
“The piece incorporates banksias and morrisons… and then we spiced it up a little bit by adding some beautiful flame lilies and even squash to bring some interest.
“It’s just so unique, and there’s so many different native species that exist all over Perth and Western Australia. So it was really fun to incorporate those into the piece.”
Mr Heyworth said it was special to be part of an event that is also centred around Mother’s Day, which brings together flowers and motherhood in a tradition that continues to be shared across the world.
“Mother’s Day is a really important day for me… I would buy my mom flowers every year on Mother’s Day before I was a florist,” Mr Heyworth said.
“I think especially the older generation really still appreciates the token of gift giving. There’s something nice about, you know, giving back to your mom, obviously, and flowers are a pretty special way to do that.”
Several other florists have brought their unique flower flair to the festival. This year’s trail features 18 large-scale botanical installations installed throughout Subiaco’s town centre.
“This festival is unique… not only for the community to be able to experience flowers together, but also the floral community,” he said.
“It brings so many amazing florists together to showcase and highlight what they do, as well as giving them the opportunity to collaborate with each other, to learn and see ideas and how other people work.
“This is such a rare thing, and it’s really cool to be a part of.”
Though the festival is in bloom for just one weekend, the flowers will live on while longer.
Volunteers from Recycled Blooms will repurpose thousands of them into 90 bouquets — all wrapped in hand-painted paper designed by Subiaco Primary School students.
The bouquets will then be hand-delivered to new mothers and dedicated hospital staff at King Edward Memorial Hospital and St John of God Subiaco.
For more information, head to the See Subiaco website here.
