A conversation with Caterina

Hi Caterina! How are you? Could you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?

I'm Caterina, a botanical designer based in a small centuries-old village in the Italian Alps. I work under the name Fiorebrado, which literally means "untamed flower", referring to something that remains free, uncultivated, true to its own nature. Before working with botanical materials, I spent almost twenty years as a graphic designer and art director. That experience shaped everything I do today. I still approach botanical design as a design discipline rather than simply floral decoration.

So your background was never in flowers at all. That's interesting, because when you look at your work, there's such a refined restraint to it, it feels like it comes from somewhere very intentional.

My approach to botanical design began long before I started working with plants, actually. I studied Design at the Politecnico di Milano, where "less is more" wasn't simply a stylistic principle but a way of thinking about clarity, proportion, necessity. After twenty years as a graphic designer and art director, I realized those principles hadn't disappeared. They'd simply found a different material. When I moved to working with plants, I had to unlearn something too. Nature doesn't need to be simplified; it already possesses its own intelligence and complexity. Instead of reducing the object, I try to reduce my intervention, allowing the material to express its own character.

For me, botanical design isn't a departure from design thinking. It's its evolution through living materials.

That makes sense. And when I look at your compositions, there's such attention to texture and line. You work with dried flowers, grasses, subtle colors. Can you walk us through how you actually choose materials?

My practice began with foraging. Before thinking about composition, I learned to observe botanical materials in their own environment and to be surprised by them. I'm fascinated by the way nature changes—how beauty evolves, ages, dries and sometimes reappears in unexpected forms. I try to understand the intrinsic character of a material through its different botanical stages. Not only when it is fresh or in bloom, but also when it is dry, fragile, twisted, almost unrecognizable. For me, the beauty of a composition always begins with the original beauty of the material itself. Its natural posture. The way sap has shaped its line. The traces that time has left on its surface. I often choose to isolate a material rather than combine many different elements. Giving space and attention to a single botanical material allows its own identity to emerge before it enters into dialogue with others.

 

There's something very Italian about that, the way you balance restraint and expression. Being elegant without being cold.

Being Italian has probably taught me that restraint and expressiveness don't have to be opposites. My education introduced me to the clarity and discipline of modern design, but living and working in Italy has shown me that essentiality doesn't have to exclude emotion. A composition can be precise without becoming rigid, and expressive without becoming excessive. I'm not interested in minimalism as an aesthetic. I'm interested in finding what is essential while allowing the material to remain alive and emotionally present. I think that balance between rigor and expression is one of the deepest influences Italian culture has had on the way I design.

It sounds like when you begin a project, you have a very clear process, but also a lot of intuition. How does that actually work?

Sometimes it begins with a single botanical element that I fall in love with. A branch's natural movement, shape, growth habit. That first spark is completely intuitive. But everything that follows is very considered. I'm extremely selective about the botanical materials I choose, and I rarely compromise on them. From that first element, I gradually build the composition through complementarity rather than contrast. I'm looking for relationships between color, texture, scale, and even the tactile qualities of each material. I don't see botanical materials as isolated elements. I'm interested in the conversations they create with one another.

When you describe that slowness in your work, and there's definitely a feeling of it, nothing rushed. I wonder if that's about the making itself, or something else?

I think what you're perceiving as slowness probably belongs more to the research than to the making. That research isn't a separate phase of my work. It quietly accompanies everyday life. It happens while I'm walking, observing, collecting, or simply living. Images, impressions and ideas gradually settle almost unconsciously until they become part of the way I see. It's a slow process, but once that sediment has formed, making often becomes surprisingly instinctive. The composition itself doesn't usually feel slow to me.

Perhaps the feeling of slowness comes from something else. I'm often trying to hold a fleeting moment still, preserving the beauty of a branch in motion, the curve of a stem or the gesture of a single leaf, almost like a still frame. By isolating those small movements, I hope they become more visible. It's not about slowing nature down. It's about giving ourselves the time to notice what usually disappears in an instant.

That's really beautiful. And there's something about the way you talk about aged materials, dried flowers, twisted branches, you don't treat them as decline. You treat them as another stage of life entirely.

What fascinates me about botanical materials is that they already carry a history. Their form isn't arbitrary. It's the result of growth, climate, gravity, light, and above all, time. Perhaps that's why I don't feel the need to fight them. Time is the one dimension none of us can escape, not plants, not people. The more I work with botanical materials, the more I feel that resisting time is a losing battle. I'd rather embrace it. A dried flower, a twisted branch, a weathered stem don't represent decline to me. They simply reveal another stage of life, one that deserves the same attention and dignity as a flower in full bloom.

You also teach workshops. What made you want to share this knowledge with others?

Every landscape offers different materials. Every material suggests different possibilities. Every designer responds to them differently. I think that's where every design process should begin. That's the core of the workshops I run. I encourage people to begin with the material rather than the rule, to observe more carefully and discover their own botanical correspondences. I came to floral design through design, not through a traditional floral education. Perhaps that's why it felt natural to question conventions that are often taken for granted. Or maybe it's simply because I've never been interested in formulaic approaches to design, learning rules, schemes, dogmas, especially when they originate in cultural and botanical contexts different from my own, like many Northern European and British floral traditions. So the workshops are as much about unlearning as they are about learning. My hope is that people leave with a stronger botanical voice, one that grows from the place they live, the materials that surround them, and their own way of seeing. Perhaps that's also why workshops never feel like teaching to me. They feel like conversations. Every participant brings a different perspective, and that dialogue continues to shape my own practice as much as I hope my practice shapes theirs.

What's calling you next? What are you exploring now?

I'm quite a creature of habit, so to be honest I'd like to keep my days centered around the studio, experimenting with materials and making. But I'm becoming increasingly interested in bringing botanical design into conversation with other crafts and design disciplines. Tailoring, basketry, traditional making techniques fascinate me, not because I want to preserve them, but because they offer different ways of thinking that still feel surprisingly relevant today.

At the same time, I'm interested in what a more Southern perspective could bring to contemporary botanical design. Not as a nostalgic return to tradition, but as a way of responding to the spirit of our time through the landscapes, materials, and cultural heritage of the Mediterranean. I'm curious about what might emerge where these two ways of thinking meet. The next workshop, Luce, in October will be the first opportunity to explore this direction.