CURATED BY BESS

Flowers mark the change of season with quiet certainty, their scent and colour heralding full bloom. To celebrate spring, we asked our neighbour, florist Bess, to curate local wildflowers alongside our elemental gold and silver pieces. 

Established in 2018 with her partner, Jack, BESS is florist Bess Scott’s homage to Australian native wildflowers. For Bess, the craft is an inherited art form: she is a fifth-generation grower and florist whose family history began in 1950 with her great-grandmother. Her grandfather Colin was an early pioneer of native floristry across Menai and Rookwood, a dedication later passed to her father, Craig. 

From her William Street boutique, Bess curates' blooms steeped in this multi-generational knowledge. It is a world we know fondly—in 2022, we visited Craig Scott’s farm to shoot our Flaura campaign with Angelina Kendall, surrounded by the vivid palette of the family’s harvest. 

Highly fire-adapted, the Waratah produces its most spectacular blooms in the wake of bushfire. While its display remains quiet during the first spring after a burn, the plant hits an abundant, dramatic peak roughly eighteen months later—reshooting vigorously from its base to drink in the mineral-rich nutrients left behind in the ash. 

Stone Draa draws its name from the Draa River—water, the vital life-giving current, paired with stone, the grounding anchor of the earth. The Flannel Flower thrives at the intersection of these two elements. Native to Australia’s east coast, it seeks out the sandy fringes where coastal rock meets the sea. Just like us.