Building a Floral Universe: Crushes Flowers
Briony Wright has spent her career building creative worlds. Over twenty years in media, she launched Vice and i-D magazines in Australia and New Zealand, produced fashion shoots and content for clients including Gucci, Nike, Mercedes and the NGV, and developed editorial strategies that shaped how Australian stories reached global audiences.
At the beginning of 2024, she started something new. 'To be honest I just felt like a change and liked the idea of learning as much as I could about a new creative medium. I liked the idea of blending the skill sets of writing, production and floristry, rather than seeing them as separate or independent. I also liked the idea of starting my own thing after working with a huge, global company for so many years.'
That became Crushes Flowers. It started with installations for clients including Australian Fashion Week, Alpha60 and Rising Festival. Then in January 2025, her brother Nick joined to build the business operations and e-commerce side. Now, as Briony describes it: 'It's a floral universe from which we deliver elevated bouquets same-day across Melbourne, create floral installations for events and publish a great online flower and scent magazine.'
Walking into the Crushes studio feels like stepping into one of Briony's mood boards, except the floors are scattered with stems and the air is perfumed with notes of jasmine, peonies and native blooms. '90s fashion magazines and Sofia Coppola's back catalogue are our entire personality,' she says. 'We're committed to curating flowers that are the furthest distance from boring. We like quality everything and try to evoke a mood through the most beautiful flowers combined in fun and unexpected ways.'
The media years were spent at desks and screens. Floristry is constant movement. 'I love how non-sedentary floristry work is. I basically never sit down—outside of driving to farms and flower markets and posting on socials. Floristry is a perfect balance between creative planning and experimentation and it's all very active. It's not unusual for me to clock 20,000 steps in a day, which is maybe 18,000 more than I'd do on a story deadline.'
At that pace, what you wear matters. 'I waver between a teenage skater and an Olsen twin,' she says. 'I love interesting and flattering pieces but also prioritise comfort. Floristry isn't the cleanest occupation so I try to wear dark colours and contrast this with light-coloured shoes.'
Briony's been wearing the pink Super Birki 2.0 from Birkenstock's Professional range in the studio. 'They're really solid, secure and supportive. They feel impenetrable to things like dropped scissors or buckets. Also, I love a bold shoe. The pink is adorable. Like a party on my feet.'
In less than two years, Crushes has carved out something distinct in Melbourne, bringing the same rigour and creative vision to floristry that once shaped magazine launches and global brand campaigns. The work continues: new ideas to obsess over, new arrangements to experiment with, the floral universe still expanding.
