Regine Motmans, Floral Connector at Thursd immersed in a year-long exploration of floristry around the world. Following this extensive journey, she shares her insights by answering these 10 questions. Simultaneously, Regine has dedicated months to contribute her expertise to the Thursd Floral Trend Color for 2024. Stay tuned for a captivating glimpse into her global floristry adventures and her creative endeavors in shaping upcoming floral trends!
During the 2023 International Floriculture Trade Fair, floricultural magazine Thursd introduced its new platform myThursd. myThursd is designed to connect the whole chain of floriculture, including you. Whether you are a breeder or grower, a wholesale or retail trader, an event designer or a florist, a photographer, a marketeer, or any other creative (or anywhere else on the road from production to consumption. myThursd is your place to connect with people and businesses in an easy way.
myThursd is the floral meetup spot! An ultimate hub for businesses and people to connect, collaborate, and conquer the market together. And Regine is there to help you connect.
Here, she talks about herself, her journey in the flower industry, and all that her job entails, as well as her overall view of the floristry and flower industry.
Question 1:
For those who don’t know you, who are you and what do you do?
For the past 4 years, I’ve been working for Thursd.com. As their Floral Connector. I connect Floral designers to growers, growers to breeders, breeders to designers, to the market for ideas,… The floral online meetup spot Thursd and myThursd bring all those together. I can assure you: it’s hot!
As a mother of 3 boys, and being with my husband Dominic for 36 years, I learned a lot about love and life and it gives me extra strength to try to get out of life what I love the most. I opened my flower shop Floregineel in 1996 and first 10 years that was my working space. Later on, I wanted to expand my boundaries and I started visiting growers, to see where my flowers came from. I got the opportunity to design the flowers for the opening nights of the new perfume for Lancôme: ’La Vie Est Belle’. That opened some doors. A Chinese lady approached me to organize a team to do design for the Horticultural World Expo in Qingdao China in 2014! 4400 square meters high-level Floral design with the story of a sustainable city throughout the world. With high-end florists such as Tomas de Bruyne, Tom de Houwer, Max van de Sluis, Pim van den Akker, Jan de Ridder, Joe Massie, and Stef Adriaenssens, … we achieved a top-level result. A year later in Belgium they asked me to work as Art Director for Fleuramour for 7 happy years. I graduated from the EMC program ( European Master Certification ), the Floral Design training by Tomas de Bruyne and Christi Lopez, and I try to feed myself with big projects and Floral installations. Experience makes me understand more about design and trends, and I can use that expertise for Thursd. Like we unveiled the Thursd Floral Trend Color 2024 today, the trend color is based on everything that’s going on in the world, in the floral industry.
Flowers are my passion! They make you happy and feed your soul, and everything is more beautiful with flowers. It’s a message I convey and Thursd breathes this message. To achieve results as we already did, it’s an amazing feeling. Together with the whole Thursd Team I’m proud of it.
Question 2:
What is so special about your job?
“My job has many sides, almost all good ones. I skilled myself in writing and editing, SEO articles as well as creative blogs, and I like that part of my job, to get our message out there. But most of all I love to connect. Within the world of creatives. Online of course you can connect, but travelling the world to beautiful events like AIFD Symposium, Gateway to the Americas, Interflora World Cup Floristry, Florint’s Europa Cup, FloriCon and BFA Awards, Event Flora, IFTF, Trade Fair, Dare to Bloom, Leverano in Fiori, Expo Flor Ecuador, Table Design Exhibition Istanbul, Intrigued Experience, IPM Essen, Fleurs des Villes, WFFSA Miami, IFTEX Kenya and many more, makes it all worth it. I never look at Thursd as my employer, I look at it as if it’s mine, and I would do anything for it.”
Question 3:
Are there any specific challenges or obstacles you’ve faced in your job, and how did you overcome them?
“Oh wauw, how much can I write? I’ve had many challenges in my life, but the biggest two ones I will explain. In april 2019 I organized my own big floral event in a beautiful location near by my house: Herkenrode Abbey. In the month before I made sure there was a promotion in the city of Hasselt, with 40K tulips to hand to the public. Everything was gorgeous, a group of international designers brought their most beautiful and creative side to the scene, and there was music, good food, floral fashion shows, a market with all kinds of shops, yoga, flower demonstrations and much more. And my goal was to connect it all in this event: Blossoming Herkenrode. It worked, I got many fantastic reviews. But to be break even I needed 10K visitors in 4 days and I only had 4.8K. Looking back I should have never taken the risk on my own, but I can tell you, I learned a lot from it. In the first year after the event I worked double as hard, end 2019 I started working for Thursd connecting the floral industry, but when Covid hit, of course, it brought me completely out of my balance. No opportunity to travel, or to work hard to fight back… and find a financial balance again. But I’m a person that always searches for solutions and never looses courage. At least not up to now. I decided to throw myself completely at Thursd: that was my second challenge. Not familiar with computer work, I had to learn almost everything from scratch. So I spent days and nights, making mistakes, doing everything all over again, but also seeing progress and seeing Thursd develop and growing. I gave me more courage to go on and work hard. I’m still learning everyday, knowledge is one of the things in life that so valueble. I’m so grateful for Thursd, it gave me purpose and a goal.”
Question 4:
What are the threats in the industry, and if so, do you have any solutions for them?
“Mmmm, the biggest threat is that people loose respect for one another, that they forget to be sensible, that emotions are not taken into account on workfloors, insensitivity is the biggest threat I believe. Flowers and plants are products with souls, and the people that work with them have souls to…
How to solve? Be kind for all those souls. Always try to listen to people around you, feel what their biggest needs are, and when you don’t feel, ask where you can help. If everybody knew the world around them would have their backs, the world would be much more beautiful.”
Question 5:
How has technology like e-commerce platforms or digital marketing affected your industry, which strategies have you employed to stay competitive?
“As the Floral Connector at Thursd I don’t really have any issues like an e-commerce. But Digital Marketing of course is more important than ever. I think it’s very important to get your company out there: grab every opportunity to make sure the world sees you, so you can make a difference. Thursd tries to stay competitive by writing very diverse, as well about flowers, about photography, architecture, nature, about plants, and really provide knowledge. That is important, when people have a search intent, the results they find have to contribute to that. And equaly important is how it looks, our eyes need beauty, it makes us happy.”
Question 6:
Who (in or outside the floral industry) is an inspiring example to you? And Why?
“I would say outside our industry Esther Perel, how she talks about life, humanity and everything happening in the world, gives me many insights. And from floriculture Avinash Mokate from Sunfloritech, a Black Tulip Farm in Kenya. We visited that farm after IFTEX. They work towards 100% organic growth by the end of 2025, which is very ambitious. But it’s was so inspiring that it’s still vivid in my mind. It also was a reminder to me that Sky Blue and Bright White were the right colors to work on for the Thursd Floral Trend Color 2024. Clear skies for all humanity, they provide better photosynthis, so better growth for plants, and a more stable climate. They provide limitless possibilities and opportunities within us, but also around us. The Sky Is the Limit! Be as ambitious as you can! “
Question 7:
How do you handle stress or difficult moments in your life?
“I have the best family ever. They support me in my journey and I when I’m confused they give me new insights. I have a lot of really good friends, and I’m grateful to also being able to be a good listener to them all. Because sometimes difficult moments seam to disappear next to problems from somebody else. Stress doesn’t seem to reach me easily. I’m a calm person I believe. ( laughing with myself a little bit)
Question 8:
What has been the best (floral or non-floral) news for you lately, or of the last year?
“The best news? For me it counts that everybody close to me feels content, that’s good news for me! And if they say we will have a great summer, with lots of blue skies, that’s also good news for me, even in winter, I don’t mind cold that much, but I love the sun. But the very best news was a few weeks ago, when we received the news myThursd can start to onboard members. Let’s connect this beautiful world through myThursd, finally, the floral meetup spot we have been all waiting for.”
Question 9:
Which is your favorite flower and why?
“My favorite flower is a rose, and not one in particular. Although my heart jumps when I see a bright red one, little bit orange even, it was my father’s favorite. That will always stay… but no, I really love them all, garden varieties, or classic ones, all beautiful. A rose changes every day, it opens, changes from color and that feeling of livelyness I love so much. “
Question 10:
What are you doing this weekend?
“I hope not to much. I traveled a lot in the past months, and even when my work is finished, I still have months of work to do I guess. But this weekend I will go to Lucinda Van der Ploeg and listen to what the circle of women in her yurt have to say. Flowers and people. I’m looking forward to that.”
Well, there you have it; nearly all that you would have wanted to know about Regine Motmans, Floral Connector at Thursd. This week Thursd announces its Floral Trend Color of the Year 2024, Sky Blue and Bright White. And a few weeks ago myThursd was launched.
