Nearly 100 people, including industry professionals and consumers alike, packed into a ballroom-turned-design-room Sept. 22, to watch 19 of the country’s top designers vie for the coveted Sylvia Cup in the nation’s longest-running live floral design competition, held at The Breakers for the final day of SAF Palm Beach 2012, SAF's 128th annual convention.
Vincent Petrovsky, AAF, AIFD, owner of Heaven and Earth Floral in West Palm Beach, Fla., won the grand prize — a silver cup, $3,000 cash prize and a complimentary registration to SAF Phoenix 2013 — to which he responded with an enthusiastic, “Wahoo!” when it was announced at the “Stars of the Industry” Awards Dinner later that evening. Brita Edlbauer, AIFD, owner of Floral Art Studio in Orlando, Fla., was first runner-up. Brenda Veasman, AIFD, owner of Flowerama on Pacific in Omaha, Neb., was second runner-up.
Contestants all received the same materials— flowers and foliage from the California Cut Flower Commission and design supplies from Smithers-Oasis — and the challenge. For the Sylvia Cup Competition’s 45th anniversary, contestants were introduced to a fictional couple celebrating their sapphire (45th) wedding anniversary by renewing their vows at The Breakers. This couple would require: a bridal bouquet, a maid of honor bouquet for the bride’s daughter, a boutonniere for her husband and son, and a centerpiece. As a cue for the bride’s style, contestants were told that she and her daughter run a “chichi” boutique in Palm Beach. Designers had two hours to create wedding pieces to wow this fashionable family.
Fifteen minutes into the competition, contestants received a surprise element: Smithers-Oasis’ new MEGA beaded wire, which they had to incorporate into at least one of their designs. An hour later, members of SAF’s Professional Floral Communicators – International — Vince Butera, AAF, AIFD, PFCI, and Lisa Weddel, AIFD, PFCI — provided commentary for the spectators seated in the center of the horseshoe-shaped configuration of design tables.
“Look around you—these designers are a bunch of magicians,” Butera said. “Every one of them will create something totally different from the exact same materials.”
Weddel explained the importance of listening to the challenge’s description, particularly the detail about the family’s boutique business. “Hearing that they run a chic, eclectic shop, designers should know these are women who are on trend with color and style,” she said. “They have to tune into these key words, because the judges certainly will.”
Weddel also emphasized that contestants were judged on more than meets the eye. “It’s not just what’s the prettiest,” she said. “Mechanics count too. We have to move the designs later, and they need to not fall over.”
Butera elaborated on the criteria by which judges evaluate, saying, “floral designers use the same principles as artists — they’re concerned with form, space, pattern and texture.” He noted that, at his shop, Butera the Florist in York, Pa., clients have become increasingly enchanted with this last attribute. “We’ve become a tactile-deprived society,” he said. “We’re so accustomed to smooth smartphone screens, that we just crave something with texture.” For years, he watched customers immediately smell their arrangements; “now they touch,” he said.
In the final minutes of the competition, before spectators and contestants were ushered out for judging, Butera — cognizant of the consumers in the crowd —plugged SAF-commissioned research studies from Rutgers University that highlight flowers’ emotional impact. “There is scientific proof,” he said. “Flowers have an immediate effect on happiness.”
SAF President Bob Williams II, AAF, PFCI, who was in the audience, backed up Butera’s scientific reference with a personal anecdote, sharing how, before a recent Valentine’s Day, he overheard a man in the gym saying he wasn’t buying his wife flowers because she said, “they just die.” “That is not something the incoming president of the Society of American Florists wants to hear,” he said. “So I told him to buy her the flowers and, if she wasn’t thrilled, I’d pick up the tab.” A few days later, the man told Williams his wife was elated with the floral design.
“What’s so great about the Sylvia Cup is that we actually get to see customized product — which makes such an emotional impact — develop before our own eyes,” Williams said.
To see photos from the Sylvia Cup, visit http://flic.kr/s/aHsjCka6L7.
The Society of American Florists is the leading organization representing all segments of the floral industry. SAF is proud to provide marketing, business and government services to more than 10,000 participants in the U.S. floral industry — including growers, wholesalers, retailers, importers, suppliers, independent designers, researchers, educators and students. The association celebrated its 125th Anniversary in 2009
Source: Society of American Florists