Daphne Fitch is based in the North Essex countryside and was founded by Sophie Griffin. It embodies two of her life’s pursuits: art and nature, and through creating Daphne Fitch, Sophie has cultivated an art form rooted in a love for flowers.

From a small child, arts and crafts have been continuous threads weaving through Sophie’s life, and has always indulged in a playful relationship with art, experimenting with colour, form and texture. Never one to shy away from her own instincts and inquisitiveness, she followed new ribbons of curiosity into textiles, pottery, and lastly gardening. With an innate love for the aesthetics of the world around her, flowers and flora are obvious, yet unending sources of inspiration.

In nature there is always something to catch the eye, be it wildflowers dusting country lanes, or summer evenings spent amongst the garden’s blooms. Beauty can also be gleaned in knowing how something works. Studying the botanical side of horticulture has enabled Sophie to delve into nature, glimpsing beauty, not only in its aesthetic, but in the structures found within nature. Understanding the biological structure of flowers and their life cycles is as important as the feelings that can be evoked by them and the ideas they represent. Plants are remarkable things. There is something singular in nurturing a plant from seed and then watching it bloom.

Great care is taken, and satisfaction garnered from replicating the structures found within each flower. Striving to make better flowers, Sophie is able to reproduce these structures in paper, understanding the subtle interplay between the corolla and calyx, she is able to ensure the petals hold themselves naturally, so the flowers stand true to form. The art of paper flowers is a relatively niche craft, though gaining popularity globally. Using something that is essentially flat and two-dimensional, then with various techniques, of cutting, folding, twisting, stretching, and cupping to sculpt and transform it into a three-dimensional form.