Zita Elze

Zita Elze opened her first shop in Kew in 2003, the year she won the Design & Decoration Award for a therapeutic garden for traumatised children in northern Italy. She trained in artistic bookbinding in Paris, interior design at KLC School of Design in London and landscape design at the Inchbald School.

In 2009 a silver-gilt medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show introduced Living Embroidery, real flowers and foliage hand-stitched onto fabric. The technique won the Condé Nast Brides Editor's Gold Design Award in 2014 and 2016, and Zita became RHS London Floral Artist in Residence in 2018. She was also named Best Wedding Florist at the 2012 Perfect Wedding Awards.

“I would love to say everything comes directly from the soul. I really do not think of a recipe on how to put a design together, rather I let it happen naturally.”

Zita Elze, Founder

Zita is Brazilian by birth and describes her style as a mix of Brazilian fantasy, English gentleness and Japanese precision. Her daughter Laura joined the business in 2017 and now directs the floral work, still visiting New Covent Garden Flower Market herself.

Weddings begin with a conversation about the couple, the outfit, the venue, the season and the feeling of the day, and designs are rarely repeated. The studio's work includes bridal bouquets, headpieces, ceremony and venue installations, and the 2023 wedding of Zita's son Alvaro and Lisanne at Schloss Weißenstein, a Baroque palace in Pommersfelden, Germany.