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Born in Taiwan in 1973, Alfie Lin is renowned for his contemporary floral designs, having won numerous awards such as the Art Display & Decoration Committee of China Kylin Award, the Taiwan Display and Decoration Award TADD, and the Taiwan Interior Design Award – TID Award for Space Installation Art. He also designed the wedding flowers for Jay Chou and Hannah Quinlivan's evening reception. Internationally, Alfie Lin's reputation further expanded when Kenneth Ko, the "father of Hong Kong interior design," invited him to design the flowers for a gala dinner at a castle in Scotland in 2017.
Alfie Lin and his wife, Ivy Chen, in an exclusive interview with Travellive.
A florist who studied...marine engineering.
Despite his impressive artistic achievements, few know that Alfie Lin began his career as a delivery man at a flower shop. The 49-year-old shared that he had no prior knowledge of floral art. Although he showed a talent for painting inherited from his father, an amateur artist, he chose to major in marine engineering in college because his family worried that an artistic career wouldn't provide a stable income.
“I wasn’t academically gifted, so I kept failing and having to retake courses in college. It took me seven years to graduate. The only class I got above 90 was art,” Lin shared humorously.
His career as a floral designer came about quite by chance. After completing his military service, a friend asked if he wanted to work as a delivery person for a flower shop. From the very beginning of his flower delivery job, Alfie Lin felt that flowers were a part of the beautiful moments in life.
“In the morning, I deliver flowers to a guy who wants to give them to his girlfriend. At noon, I deliver flowers to a husband who wants to surprise his wife. And in the evening, I deliver flowers to a funeral. Each day is a different adventure, meeting different people, experiencing different emotions.” With that feeling, Alfie Lin's connection with flowers began.
From a delivery man with a love for flowers, Alfie Lin has become a renowned floral designer.
The listener hears the flowers speak.
At the flower arrangement workshop, he jokingly said, "I like flowers because they are silent. They're calming! But because they are silent, flowers have a very different way of communicating." Each flower has its own language; besides being able to convey special messages on behalf of a person, the image of flowers can also touch the sensitive and delicate parts of the soul.
When explaining the importance of flowers, Alfie Lin shared his very own feelings: "Flowers, once cut and displayed or given as gifts, don't usually last long, but they always appear on important occasions. Because flowers are like those special moments—short but beautiful. They remind us of past memories, urging us to cherish the fleeting moments of our lives. Each flower has its own meaning, but when given to someone, the flower takes on additional personal meanings."
The life cycle of a flower is like life itself—short but beautiful.
Alfie Lin has always loved designing wedding flowers.
That's why Alfie Lin has always loved designing wedding flowers. He always seeks to combine many different materials and styles to create a unique and momentous feeling for this special day in a person's life.
Alfie Lin told us about the wedding of Troy and Emma, which took place in Yangshuo County (Guangxi Province, China). The groom, Troy, and the bride, Emma, chose a resort renovated from an old sugar factory nestled among majestic limestone mountains. After surveying the site, Alfie Lin's design team decided to transform the pristine reed garden next to the resort into their wedding venue. Because the wedding was at the end of April, he and his team carefully checked which flowers would bloom early in the year, which seeds were suitable for the local soil, and they started planting them in early January. And on their wedding day, the bride, Emma, was accompanied by her father amidst a sea of marigolds.
Bride Emma was escorted by her father amidst a garden of marigolds.
This was the longest wedding flower design project he and his colleagues had ever undertaken.
In addition to using native flowers and plants from Yangshuo, Alfie Lin also used peonies that bloom in April and May for the flower arch and the wedding grounds. He hoped that anyone who witnessed this beautiful wedding, every time they saw a peony, would always remember the garden nestled in the limestone mountains, where the Lijiang River listened to the vows of eternal happiness.
Alfie Lin has always believed that "the most important thing is not the flowers, but our emotions." For each project, he always seeks to understand what his clients want, the stories behind them, or the types of flowers they love. Because a wedding is a very personal event, the emotions conveyed by the wedding flowers should also resonate with the bride and groom.
Wedding flowers carry messages that touch the emotions of the bride and groom.
Following Mother Nature in search of its indigenous character.
For Alfie Lin, being a florist isn't about being the best florist. For a work to "speak," he must respect nature's expressive capacity. Alfie Lin always finds inspiration in nature, observing the growth principles of plants and the structures that nourish them. The materials used in floristry should also prioritize prolonging the life of the plants and flowers. That's why Alfie Lin prefers using native plants from the places he visits to create his art installations. Any plant is suitable to become a work of art, from mushrooms and wildflowers to even moss.
Any type of plant is suitable to become an artwork, from mushrooms and weeds to even moss.
Of course, there will also be designs that require cultural differences, for example, a client wanting a traditional Eastern artwork placed in a classic European setting. In this case, Alfie Lin's job is to prioritize harmonizing the native characteristics of the plants in that location and placing them within a fresh, creative space.
Alfie Lin's efforts to bring a sense of local identity into each of his works were inspired by a trip to Taiwan with the owner of a flower shop in Germany where he had interned. While passing a rice field, the international visitor wanted to stop the car to take a picture, which surprised Alfie Lin. Responding to his curiosity, the German visitor said it was the first time they had seen a rice field in person, as there was no such scenery in the Nordic countries. This experience made Alfie Lin realize he had missed out on many local landscapes and natural resources. He thought his clients would also miss out on similar opportunities if he didn't bring the natural beauty of their country into his artwork.
Alfie Lin always prioritizes harmonizing the native plant life of the places he visits.
Alfie Lin enthusiastically told us about the unique things he discovered in Vietnam. He was very curious about the tropical flora and extremely impressed by the trees with their very large leaves and the flower markets with their diverse varieties. In particular, his must-see destination was Da Lat – the city of a thousand flowers. With its cool, temperate climate combined with the geological structure of a tropical region, Da Lat boasts incredibly diverse and abundant vegetation, making Alfie Lin eager to spend time there to learn more about plants and flowers.
Alfie Lin is very excited about the tropical flora in Vietnam.
The simplicity, freshness, and subtlety of nature are always an endless source of inspiration and ideas. "Just follow Mother Nature. Observe the beauty of a flower beneath a delicate bud, see how velvety petals stand out when placed next to a bare branch. Nature is beautiful in itself; our job is to subtly rearrange its position." - Alfie Lin shared.
*We sincerely thank Park Hyatt Saigon for their support.
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