Two young women named Gao give a radical makeover to an old house on Shaoxing Road, a flower shop stocking the hardest-to-find flowers in all of Shanghai
A small new flower shop recently opened on Shaoxing Road called Lumos Flower Bar, named after a spell from "Harry Potter": Lumos (a flash of light).
This flower shop has no tacky, overpowering perfume lilies, and you won't see the best-selling roses on the market either.
The two shop owners, both named Xiaogao, have turned Lumos into a small museum of flowers and plants, choosing flower materials that ordinary flower shops simply can't find. Chances are you've never seen them, and you can't name them either.
Sandersonia, campanula, Eriocapitella, freesia, scabiosa, bride flower, coneflower, delphinium, winter aconite, Trachymene coerulea, aster, anthurium, Celosia argentea, Gloriosa superba... each one has its own delicate charm.
Like a Balloon
Extending Playground
Renée
00:00/02:30
{Peony Girl Vol.833 }
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Two Xiaogao
Shaoxing Road's fame mostly comes from the established buyer's shop Triple-Major and Hanyuan Bookstore. Ever since both closed, Shaoxing Road in summer has been so quiet that only the cicadas can be heard.
LumosYet they deliberately chose such a quiet, slightly declining street, and 2 months ago, quietly began a soft opening, full of the confidence that good wine needs no bush.
Image from the internet
I started paying attention to Lumos because of their lively mobile flower market on recent weekends. The trendy mixed space FiuFiu and the fashion buyer's shop Nininio's pop-up events both had Lumos lending support.
So these past couple of days, I visited the Lumos flower shop and the two shop owners. Lumos has two shop managers, one surnamed Gao, and the other also surnamed Gao.
The two Xiaogao are really alike, both post-90s, both girls from the north, both with sweet smiles. The two first met by chance at the Catherine Muller floral art school in London.
Even though both are shy and reserved, they hit it off on the very first day they met. Probably because the two have so much in common, both love flowers, and their aesthetics, preferences, and personalities are all similar, so there was really a lot to talk about.
The two Xiaogao's teacher at the Catherine Muller floral art school, Jo Chaker
When they talked about what they wanted to do in the future, the two found their dreams collided, both wanting to open a flower shop. Neither remembers who suggested "why not do it together," but in short, a half-joking remark, after the short one-week floral art course ended, turned into a shared goal for the two.
The two Xiaogao seriously began planning to open a flower shop together. The two described it this way: from then on, every day, apart from sleeping, almost every moment was spent working hard for their shared flower shop.
The two first continued their studies in London for a while, then decided to come to Shanghai to start their shared career.
Because they planned to hold workshops at the flower shop in the future, the two chose a spot on relatively quiet Shaoxing Road. The flower shop's predecessor was an old-fashioned stationery store, and transforming a dim, old shop into today's flower shop was a process akin to a nightmare.
The two Xiaogao are from the north, with no deep understanding of Shanghai, and no experience at all in running a flower shop, but having agreed to do it, they pressed forward even in complete darkness.
Many girls have had the airy dream of opening a flower shop, but actually carrying it out is not as light as dreaming. For the two Xiaogao, many problems in opening the flower shop were encountered for the first time, and the first time they had to give as perfect an answer as possible.
The former storefront......
Renovation photos Xiaogao posted on Weibo, the prototype of the shop is already visible
Although the old house's location is good, it's old and its foundation is poor: the usable area is small, the walls have absorbed too much water, the foundation needs to be hammered down, some walls are so thin they're pierced with one chisel...... During the renovation they stumbled into quite a few problems. Whatever could be solved was solved as much as possible; what couldn't be solved, they just had to compromise with reality.
Through the two Xiaogao's pulling and tugging, Lumos opened. On quiet Shaoxing Road, there was a bit more fresh vitality.
In "Harry Potter," when Miranda mentions the Lumos spell, she says "Simple, but requires concentration."
Although the Lumos flower shop isn't big, the two Xiaogao put a lot of thought into it, creating a flower shop unique in Shanghai.
Walking into the shop, many of the sights before your eyes are fresh: the flowers themselves are fresh, the flower materials are fresh, the form of selling flowers is fresh. There are so many things you won't see in flower shops elsewhere.
Displayed in the window is a cloud formed from large clusters of flowers and plants suspended by 2 strings.
Passersby walking by outside the shop almost always slow down when they see the window, studying this "floating in the air" cloud of flowers and plants, and as they look and look, they can't help but want to push open the door of this flower shop.
After entering the shop, the first thing I personally noticed wasn't the flowers, but the pattern on the fluted glass on the second floor.
Although fluted glass is a fairly common element now, few shops are actually willing to do it. And Lumos's specification is large, and it's on the second floor, so the two Xiaogao went door to door to glass-making shops and searched for a long time before finding one.
This is Lumos's logo, like the light bursting forth after raising a wand high and chanting a spell, also like a soft, fluffy dandelion, and also like little fireworks going "zizz zizz" and glowing on a summer night, cute and playful.
The fluted glass wall is also T-jiang's favorite. Behind the glass are potted decorative plants; seen through the glass, there's a kind of out-of-focus hazy beauty, able to produce photography similar to Swedish photographer Samuel Zeller's work that lingers between reality and illusion.
Lumos's flower materials aren't displayed wall by wall, bucket by bucket like regular flower shops. Each flower material isn't stocked in especially large quantities, nor displayed especially full, so some in-demand flower materials may be taken away the same day they're stocked.
The two shop owners' taste in flowers and plants is also rather eccentric. Very many of the flower materials displayed in the shop are ones you simply can't name, yet the two Xiaogao can recite them one by one like calling out dishes, happily and contentedly introducing their blooming seasons and points to note, like two walking encyclopedias of flowers and plants.
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This flower looks like a lantern and also like a bell, but its true identity is actually..."
Like the fastest-selling Sandersonia in the shop, which I had never seen before when browsing flower shops and flower markets. Xiaogao says it's because the cost is too high, so ordinary flower shops simply aren't willing to stock it. Although Sandersonia looks delicate, it's unexpectedly not that hard to care for; even dried out, it keeps its puffy little party-dress state, very playful.
The regular flower materials found in regular flower shops can't be seen at Lumos. Even if slightly more common flower materials are chosen, when it comes to the specific shape and color there's sure to be something unusual.
Also gladiolus, Lumos won't choose the regular pink or orange, but will pick the light purple rarely seen in China; a more regular flower material: Lisianthus, at Lumos you won't see the regular green or white versions, but will choose pink with a crinkled petal texture and lower saturation.
Just as the shop's theme color is green, you can even see at the Lumos flower shop quantities of grass and leaf plants no less than the flowers. The two Xiaogao's taste is really great; the grasses and leaves they pick have a wildness and spirit, and in playfulness and charm, they lose nothing to the flowers.
If you're an eccentric girl who doesn't like flowers, at the Lumos flower and plant shop, maybe you'll find the plants you truly love in your heart.
Lumos is very suitable for buying flowers for yourself. Because in ordinary flower shops, if you want to buy just single stems, you'll probably, probably get a silent eye-roll from the shop owner.
But Lumos proactively puts single stems into bags and hangs them up for sale. Compared to flowers stuck in buckets, everyone coming to buy flowers really pays more attention to this section.
This display form can restore the most natural and simplest form of the plants themselves, and also makes it easier to discover the charm of each stem of flower/grass.
And buying flowers stem by stem isn't much of a financial burden either. The bouquets given during festivals and New Year are too formal, not everyday enough, and also require a lot of effort to care for.
A small single stem of flowers, as long as it's what you like, is enough to light up your mood every day.
When buying flowers, you can't remember, nine times out of ten, the shop owner's verbal introduction. Because Lumos previously encountered a customer asking: "Do fresh flowers need to be put in water?" and such questions, they simply make an information card for the flowers every time new flowers arrive, to extend as much as possible the state of the fresh flowers when they bloom.
Lumos is not just an ordinary fresh flower retail shop; the two Xiaogao also often do some interesting floral art creations, small like cake flowers, large like art installations, the two having a wonderful time playing, fully satisfying their hands-on cravings.
The cake flower creation that I really like.
When Xiaogao was studying floral art in London before, it happened to be her own birthday, so in class she made a bouquet like a birthday cake. Although it can't be eaten, it suits Xiaogao better than a real cake, so she brought this idea back to Shanghai.
When the Fiu art gallery on Yuyuan Road opened, a large floral creation Lumos sent over ended up being taken by many viewers visiting the exhibition as an exhibit of Fiu itself.
When the fashion buyer's shop Nininio held a pop-up event, Lumos, inspired by summer parasols, made two green-leaf umbrellas full of wild mountain-forest spirit. Probably only the two Xiaogao, who prefer grass to flowers, could come up with such an eccentric idea.
Lumos also offers custom bouquets. If you want a custom bouquet, you can find the two Xiaogao, but the shop has no already-tied bouquets for reference. The two Xiaogao will customize a bouquet that belongs to you personally according to your budget, favorite flower materials, and colors.
A very warm little thing: after you buy flowers, Lumos will give you a card printed with your English name and a membership card; these graphic designs were all designed by the two Xiaogao themselves.
By the way, take a guess, what did I finally take home from Lumos?
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Congratulations to me, I happily took home a Peashooter.
Oh right, this weekend Lumos will also bring their cute convertible car and drive their mobile flower market to the trendy coffee + wine space BARLOTUSS, so you can go find the two Xiaogao to hang out.
If you want to go buy flower materials on a normal day, I suggest choosing Thursday and Sunday, which are Lumos's stocking days, when there are the most flowers, and there will also be fresh flower materials flown in directly from the Netherlands.
Shop: Lumos Flower Bar
Shop address: No. 100 Shaoxing Road, Shanghai
Business hours: Monday to Sunday 10:30-19:00
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END
Some of the images in this article are real photographs
Some come from Lumos's official Weibo