Powell still isn’t entirely sure what to call himself — “I am a florist or a floral artist. Or sometimes a botanical inventor… I change my title every day.” What is clear, though, is the path that brought him here: winding, instinctive, and shaped by a lifelong conversation with plants. Before flowers, there was science. At university, he studied plant microbiology, engineering drought-resistant rice, and imagining a future in a lab coat. “I never realized that I was going to have a creative journey… I was going to be a genetic engineer.” To earn some money, he took a part-time job in a flower shop. At first, it was all mops and buckets, no artistry in sight, but something clicked. “I didn’t know anything about floristry, but I’ve always loved plants ever since I was a little kid.”
Curiosity did what it always does: it carried him somewhere new. By graduation, he was managing the shop; then came the message from London — a studio looking for young designers. He said yes, moved in 2019, worked with a major company, and after Covid opened his own shop. “I’ve always felt like this is the path that was created for me… I’ve just been walking, and it seems to be the right direction.”
The roots of that direction go far back. Born in Zimbabwe to a farmer father, nature was never far from him. He remembers France, too, where the family moved after leaving Africa; his earliest memory is botanical in every detail. “Sitting under this mimosa tree, these fluffy yellow flowers against the blue sky… it shows my brain was already logging onto those things from such a young age.”
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