Heading over to Nhi’s flower studio, Flor Saigon, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. It’d been a hot, muggy day in the middle of March, and taking a Grab over, I was already feeling somewhat beaten by the humidity. Off an alleyway inside the bustling Bà Chiểu market, Flor was somewhat hidden and yet, I would soon discover, bloomed with the graceful strength of a lotus in muddy water. As soon as I walked in, I noticed the change in the air. An air conditioner cooled the room, a sweet smell of flowers danced upon my senses, and two florists smiled before resuming their work on an arrangement. Then there was Nhi. There was something unexplainably calming about her presence, a maternal quality in the way she asked whether I wanted a drink before motioning to a table where we could sit and talk. Jazz tinkled on the speakers while Nhi told me her story. Outside, Saigon continued to burn.
Nhi’s from Cam Ranh, a coastal city near Nha Trang. Growing up near a fishing village, Nhi reflects on her childhood fondly. She spent a lot of time cooking, singing, and planting trees, which, in retrospect, was the first sign of her future green thumb. At school, she excelled at math and English, and recounts countless memories cycling to the beach with her friends after classes, where they’d play and enjoy how carefree life can feel as teenagers. As they got older, questions of what to do in the future arose, and for each of them, studying in the big city of Saigon was always the dream. Nhi was no different, which is why she ended up enrolling in the Ho Chi Minh City University of Education where she majored in English and Russian languages. Her decision to study the latter boiled down to two simple reasons. Given how popular areas like Cam Ranh and Nha Trang were among Russian tourists, Nhi knew if she learned the language the chances of her landing a job back home would increase. Besides that, her tuition fee at that university was fully-funded, meaning that she didn’t have to burden her family with extra payments. School, therefore, was more than just classes to Nhi, but a way for her to step out into the real world on her own two feet.
After graduating from university, Nhi moved to Nha Trang where she got a job as the general manager’s secretary for a five-star boutique hotel known as the Sunrise Hotel. It was here she got her first taste of the hospitality industry and what it means to offer services and experiences that are unique and live on in a customer’s memory. Being the GM’s secretary meant that she was close to the most senior position in the hotel, and as a result of such proximity, she received valuable insight from someone with years of knowledge in the field. From there, she started working as an event coordinator for the hotel. As part of her work she had the chance to create wedding arrangements. Nhi loved each aspect of this work, from coming up with moodboards for the big day, planning everything with the engaged couple, to then coordinating the whole thing to ensure it ran smoothly. Witnessing the couple’s joy at the end of it and knowing she played a part in their happiness always left her with an overwhelming feeling of contentment.
After Nhi’s journey in Nha Trang, she met her husband and made a move that would change her life forever. They decided to live in Saigon. Back in the city again, Nhi continued to develop her skills in the hospitality industry through roles at the Anam Cam Ranh Hotel and the Alma Resort Cam Ranh, both of which had offices in Saigon. Nhi, who by then had been working in the tourism and hospitality industry for seven years, had accumulated a wealth of knowledge. However, all of that had come at a cost. She’d worked non-stop which meant sacrificing time and personal freedom in exchange for the prestige that came about from the various titles she’d held. While she saw it as a worthy tradeoff given that her hard work had paid off in dividends, there was still something missing. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, everything was put on pause.
As a result of the Covid pandemic, Nhi had more time to herself. After the hustle and bustle of the past years, it was a period where she could refresh her spirit and focus on what actually mattered. As she put it, "I had time to plant trees in my garden and in my mind". She began to take life a little slower, to look within and appreciate the smaller, everyday moments that often go overlooked when we’re caught up trying to move too fast. In a way, Covid was a blessing in disguise as it allowed her to reflect on everything that had happened in her life and reconsider the path she was moving towards. This is when Nhi’s idea about how “plants talk” came about. Given the breakthrough in her professional career as a result of Covid, she was able to focus on creative hobbies and take care of her plants at home. In this process, Nhi began to consider how every plant has a soul, and if you want that soul to grow, you need to treat it with care and respect. After a while she found herself increasingly drawn to working with flowers, particularly floral design and arrangement. With this deepening passion, she thought of the mantra, “plants talk and flowers bloom”. The idea for Flor Saigon was beginning to take root, and at its core was the philosophy to, “bloom where you are planted”. This principle served as the guiding star whose direction Nhi could follow while continuing to slow down and live alongside the lessons nature teaches us.
Nhi learned about how to work with flowers through trial and error. She’d go to various markets—Hồ Thị Kỷ in District 10 and Bà Chiểu in Bình Thạnh are among her favourites—and she’d browse the rows of flowers on offer. With the aid of videos, books, and images sourced from Pinterest or Instagram, she’d start arranging the flowers and as a result of this non-stop experimentation, she quickly developed her own style and understanding of what works and what doesn’t. For Nhi, colour is paramount. One’s sense of colour composition plays a crucial role in producing a floral arrangement that is simultaneously beautiful, fresh, and harmonious. Besides that, texture adds depth and dimension while an arrangement’s structure and form bring balance. Finally, focusing on bespoke designs allow Flor Saigon to provide each arrangement with its own distinct identity, ensuring a creation that is unique. Customers who want to order something from them cannot simply pick a design from a catalogue. Instead, there’s a dialogue between Nhi and her clients that allows them to properly pinpoint what it is they’re seeking. All in all, thanks to her sheer curiosity, drive, and the reasons listed above, Nhi was ready to begin operations with Flor Saigon only after a few months of working with flowers.
Since starting Flor Saigon three years ago, a lot of developments have been made. For one, Nhi’s role has evolved to where nowadays, she functions more as the brand’s art director. Of course, that’s not to say she’s no longer involved in the floral arrangements. She still chooses the flowers, their colour combinations, and provides her florists with the direction for building an arrangement. However, on top of that, her work focuses on exploring how flowers, materials, and spatial arrangements shape contemporary experiences rooted in local culture and everyday life. However, she also leverages her years of experience in the hospitality industry through collaborations with brands such as The Vagabond Patessiere, fashion and lingerie brand, Daphale, and Urbanist Travel. Of her various collaborations, one that she’s most proud of is her work with Urbanist Travel where they partnered on an installation project known as Street Ritual. Inspired by the informal order of Saigon’s streets, Street Ritual featured a sculpture blending everyday objects such as plastic stools, baskets, and neon lights with a floral arrangement composed of flowers from Đà Lạt. The result was a uniquely Saigonese display that reassembled the chaos of the city’s streets into cohesive form with flowers. Besides work like this, Flor Saigon also specialises in private workshops and advanced flower classes for industry peers. They also prioritise arrangements for hotels, restaurants, and weddings, not to mention their bespoke floral designs. They have numerous corporate clients who Nhi wanted to keep nameless, pointing to the value she places in respecting their privacy. Having said that, many have remained her clients since Flor Saigon provided their first arrangement. A large part of this has to do with the beauty of the flowers themselves, which are a blend of local varieties from markets and cities like Hồ Thị Kỷ, Bà Chiểu, and Đà Lạt, or foreign imports from countries such as the Netherlands, China, or Ecuador. Personally, Nhi likes to prioritise native flora, and for more concept work, materials which are rooted in local craft traditions. Doing so allows her work to remain physically and emotionally connected to Vietnam, thereby bringing texture, scent, and cultural memory into the space. She believes these elements cannot be replicated through imported aesthetics alone. This is why working locally for Nhi isn’t about nostalgia or sentiment, but more to honour a sense of responsibility, continuity, and respect for something’s origin.
Nhi has grown in leaps and bounds thanks to her work with Flor Saigon. Having said that, nothing has changed her as much as having a child. Her daughter was born towards the end of the Covid pandemic, around the time when she launched Flor Saigon. Though we didn’t dive into the full scope of how the experience altered her, Nhi did relate it to her work at Flor Saigon. She told me that before having her child, her approach with flowers was based on a strong sense of control. Everything she did had to be intentional and align with her definition of beauty, meaning there was little room for error or space in which to allow the flowers to simply be.
Becoming a mother resulted in a complete shift of this mindset. She realised that at the end of the day, the things with the most beautiful and pure essence are those which you don’t force your will upon. Instead, they are those which you nurture and consciously allow to be free. Of course, while a parent must exercise a certain degree of control over their child in order to protect them, a parent must also come to the conclusion that too much protection is no different to suffocation. What matters is understanding this and knowing when to back off. Once Nhi was able to come to this conclusion, she said flowers began to feel so much more alive. Nowadays, she lets them lean. She isn’t afraid to let them find their own shape. Ultimately, she gives them the space to breathe. And this is all thanks to her daughter. She phrased it best when she said, “Motherhood taught me something very simple: I’m not here to control life, I’m here to move with it.” She took this even further when she talked about how her approach to work is no longer about forcing things to look beautiful. She’s learned that all she has to do is create the conditions for beauty to bloom. It’s this sense of freedom that ends up creating the most beautiful displays, whether it be with a floral arrangement, a collaborative project with another brand, or an afternoon spent with her family.
While Flor Saigon has only been around for three years, it’s already left a long-lasting impression. Moving forward, Nhi wants to do everything she can to continue spreading the word of their work in hopes of providing individuals and other brands with an unparalleled way of enjoying and understanding the possibilities with floral arrangements. While Nhi and her team are focused on Vietnam for now, ultimately, Nhi’s got her sights set on the world. Her dream is for her team to produce arrangements abroad, as this will allow them to showcase the beauty of Vietnam’s floral variety to people who might never have known it existed. Until that happens, they’ll continue working away from their store in an alleyway off Bà Chiểu, a place that might look ordinary from the outside but is, like a lotus flower, far from ordinary in the grace of its power within.
As our conversation winded down, I looked around the room and realised that in the end, Flor Saigon is simply an extension of who Nhi is as a woman and a mother. Thoughtful. Tasteful. Understanding. As I got up to leave, Nhi pointed to a floral arrangement displayed on a table to the side of the room. It was the same one her florists had been working on when I entered and it was, in fact, for me. A bouquet bursting of vibrant yellow, it was the perfect memento of my afternoon at Flor Saigon, and stepping out onto the streets of Saigon once more, I did so with a sense of lighthearted ease. With a sense that everything was okay.
