Aesme Studio

I have been an admirer of Ally and Jess and their exquisite work with Aesme Studio for many years. Their signature floral and photographic style is instantly recognizable: they consistently lean into the seasons with a lush, wild English-garden aesthetic for their arrangements, paired with a soft, natural approach to capturing their work through images and videos.

Aesme Studio is a London-based floral design studio. They create designs for events, teach workshops, and hold floral arranging sessions in their converted Victorian railway arch in West London. They also cultivate their own flowers in a beautiful countryside garden.

Jess and Ally, sisters born and raised in London, have been running their business for a decade. I am so grateful they were willing to share a peek inside their current seasons of life and work with us.

Images by Sarah Lesueur.

How has your business evolved in the past decade?

Yes we're celebrating our ten year anniversary this year! I think in a way our business is always evolving. One of the reasons we chose to run a flower studio, rather than a shop, was to allow ourselves the space to grow and evolve, expand and contract with our creative projects. When we started out we were mainly doing weddings and events using flowers from the wholesale market. Because we couldn't buy the garden flowers we craved to use in our designs we slowly established a cutting garden to supply the studio in London. We also started teaching, in-person at first and then, during Covid, online. People were longing for creative, artistic things they could do at home during that time, and gardening more etc, so this led us to dive deep into research and write a series of online courses on the theory and philosophy behind naturalistic floral design.

Through this process my sister, Jess, who has always photographed our work, discovered a love of videography and editing and so her role has shifted to encompass this - our latest project, Flowers on Film, is a channel dedicated to gardens, growing, storytelling, arranging flowers and conversations with other creatives. If I look back to the beginning I think we just wanted to create with flowers and the desire to do that was quite insular; I never imagined that a decade down the line our studio would become a place where we welcome flower lovers and gardeners from all over the world to share and create together and that's what we're most proud of.

Have you always wanted to work together?

Yes! We come from independent-minded parents, both Londoners, who've always done things their own way and on their own terms and as sisters we're incredibly close and share the same aesthetic vision. Our strengths and weaknesses are very different but they give us a broader scope. We're also able to both challenge and prop each other up in a way that only a sibling can do!

Can you share more about your upbringing? Were there any specific experiences that have most shaped who you are today?

As kids we grew up between central London and the Wiltshire countryside and I think that juxtaposition of urban and cosmopolitan vs rural and wild is so much a part of our make-up. We're place-schizophrenic in the sense that we crave both the sophistication of the city and the freedom and space of country life. We don't come from a horticultural background and in a way it's very random that we ended up doing flowers but our Mum was an interior designer and I think we absorbed a lot of what she was doing through osmosis, just by being around her as children. She has a great eye. But she's a minimalist, so we're very different in that respect!

Describe this current season of life for you. Do you have a weekly rhythm?

We are just coming to the end of our flower growing period here in the UK. This runs March to November so our peak season is really late spring to autumn. We work strictly seasonally and don't buy in imported flowers from abroad out of season so the rhythm of our work follows the natural cycles of the year and we get to rest more and do lots of our admin and planning in the winter! This month we're working on a new online course devoted to botanical decoration and gifting during the festive season and we're having so much fun with it.

Do you have an everyday "uniform?" or outfit formula that makes you feel at ease?

It depends where we are; in the garden we wear workwear. Comfortable, practical pieces in cotton drill or corduroy - overalls, men's shirts, denim, good sturdy boots, leather toolbelts. In London we can have a bit more fun / dress up a bit more. Jess is often wielding a camera or two so she always likes to be super comfortable. I've been living in your Giséle donegal Cardigan in cornflower, it's such a beautiful blue and the perfect oversied, cropped shape so I can already tell that's going to become a part of my winter uniform!

What is something sentimental in your wardrobe?

I'd definitely have to say my cowboy boots - I have a chocolate brown pair from Lucchese that I live in and they just make me feel so great and remind me of happy times and travels. I collect vintage - especially 1930s and 40s... I love the the uniqueness and the stories... imagining the lives they've lived... A Kenyan belt. Not forgetting hats - I love a Stetson but my favourite is a grey, wide-brimmed fur felt by Akubra that was designed in collaboration with R.M.Williams. I found it in a gentleman's outfitters in Norfolk and it'll always remind me of that holiday. Jess is surgically attached to her vintage rugby shirt, battered Redwing boots, and in the winter a sheepskin aviator jacket from Cawley Studio. I sort of think of that coat as being a part of her. Also our Mum made her 1940s style suit for her wedding that is very special.

What advice would you give to another woman wanting to start her own business?

Enjoy the process. Take your time. Be kind to yourself. Adapt. So often we skip ahead wanting to be further down the line and we miss the chance to enjoy all the little stages in between.

Favourite flowers?

Certainly roses - they're an absolute must. Rambling roses, shrub roses, wild roses. Everything about them, from the colours and petals to the scents, the shapes and colours of the stems, thorns and leaves...

What inspires you to create?

Undoubtedly the materials, the garden, being outdoors in nature.

A recent "failure" and what you learned from that?

Failure is an inevitable part of running a small business - you're regularly needing to take a punt on things, to put yourself out there, and it doesn't always go your way. I think Jess and I are fairly sanguine about this now: you win some, you lose some. In the beginning it all felt a lot more personal, it hurt a lot more. As a teacher, listening is a huge part of my job and it's interesting that so many of the (mainly women) visitors I teach are at a crossroads in their lives and this has come about through a perceived "failure" - of another business or career, of a marriage, of the body through fertility issues or illness.

On a personal level Jess and I have both been through some of those dark moments too in the last few years and our work has carried us through it and has been both solace and anchor. More than anything what it has taught us is the enormous power of women talking to one another, sharing their experiences, propping eachother up. Women have an extraordinary capacity to endure and to rally.