Amsterdam Masterclass — 1–3 November 2025

1–3 November 2025 — Amsterdam, Netherlands — teaching a stone's throw from the world's flower auction.

The autumn edition of the touring masterclass settled into a high barrel-vaulted studio outside Amsterdam, a short drive from the Aalsmeer auction that moves so much of the world's cut-flower stock. Under a curved concrete ceiling and long white curtains, rows of trestle tables ran the length of the room, each set with glass vessels, buckets of stems and the quiet clutter of three working days. The light came in cool and grey through the arched window at one end, the sort of northern autumn light that suits the palette the class had chosen: reds, rusts and berries, deepening into wine.

The flowers were unmistakably of the season. Copper roses and pincushion protea, red anthurium waxy enough to catch the light, striped amaryllis still in bud, dahlias, and the small orange rosehips and berries that ran through nearly every arrangement. Students worked in gloves, wiring amaryllis stems by hand and testing single blooms against foliage before committing them. The results ranged from tight, painterly still lifes staged against black velvet — one set among grapes and gourds like a Dutch old-master canvas — to softer box arrangements in blush and green that broke from the autumn scheme.

The centrepiece was a dense standing installation built out over three days: a chicken-wire armature massed with blue hydrangea and delphinium against red anthurium and roses, blue and red pushed hard together, autumn beech branches spraying out at the edges. There were quieter moments too — an instructor presenting a rust-toned bouquet to the room, a woman in a pale hat smiling over an armful of red.

It closed as these editions do, with the whole cohort gathered on the studio floor around their flowers, blue Lacy Bird academy folders in hand, a few kneeling at the front, everyone pleased and a little tired.

The location

Amsterdam, Netherlands — a short drive from the Aalsmeer auction.

The three days

Every touring edition runs the same Lacy Bird programme, rebuilt around the local market's flowers:

• Day one — colour theory and the house palette, the composition system, the boxed arrangement and the round commercial bouquet.
• Day two — the spreading bouquet, wrapping and presentation, and a professional photoshoot of every participant's finished work.
• Day three — large-scale event decor and installation, the business of floristry, and certificates.

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