Vince Petrovsky wins 45th Annual Sylvia Cup Competition

Nearly 100 people, including industry professionals and consumers alike, packed into a ballroom-turned-design-room Sept. 22, to watch 19 of the country’s top designers vie for the coveted Sylvia Cup in the nation’s longest-running live floral design competition, held at The Breakers for the final day of SAF Palm Beach 2012.

CLICK HERE TO SEE PHOTOS FROM THE SYLVIA CUP.


Sylvia Cup sponsors Jacque Sir Louis of Smithers-Oasis (second from left) and California Cut Flower Commission CEO Kasey Cronquist (far right) share the excitement with first-place winner (from left) Vince Petrovsky, AAF, AIFD, first runner-up Brita Edlbauer, AIFD, and second runner-up Brenda Veasman, AIFD.



Clean lines were among the striking characteristics of designs created by Sylvia Cup winner Vince Petrovsky, AAF, AIFD.



First runner-up Brita Edlbauer, AIFD, used color blocking in her designs.



Second runner-up Brenda Veasman, AIFD, showed a mastery of movement in her designs.



Sylvia Cup contestants worked against the clock, as spectators witnessed their interpretation of the 2012 challenge to create five wedding pieces for a “chichi” bride.


Vincent Petrovsky, AAF, AIFD, of Heaven and Earth Floral in West Palm Beach, Fla., won first place — a silver cup, $3,000 cash prize and a complimentary registration to SAF Phoenix 2013 — to which he responded with an enthusiastic, “Wahoo!” when it was announced at the “Stars of the Industry” awards dinner later that evening. Brita Edlbauer, AIFD, of Floral Art Studio in Orlando, Fla., was first-runner up. Brenda Veasman, AIFD, of Flowerama on Pacific in Omaha, Neb., was second-runner up.

Contestants all received the same materials— flowers and foliage from the California Cut Flower Commission and design supplies from Smithers-Oasis — and challenge. For the Sylvia Cup Competition’s 45th anniversary, contestants were introduced to a fictional couple celebrating their sapphire (45th) wedding anniversary by renewing their vows at The Breakers. This couple would require five pieces: a bridal bouquet, a maid of honor bouquet for the bride’s daughter, boutonnieres for her husband and son, who was the best man; and a centerpiece. As a cue for the bride’s style, contestants were told that she and her daughter run a “chichi” boutique in Palm Beach. Designers had two hours to create wedding pieces to wow this fashionable family.

Fifteen minutes into the competition, contestants received a surprise element: Smithers-Oasis’ new MEGA beaded wire, which they had to incorporate into at least one of their five designs. Thirty minutes in, members of SAF’s Professional Floral Communicators – International — Vince Butera, AAF, AIFD, PFCI, and Lisa Weddel, AIFD, PFCI — provided commentary for the spectators seated in the center of the horseshoe-shaped configuration of design tables.

“Look around you—these designers are a bunch of magicians,” Butera said. “Every one of them will create something totally different from the exact same materials.”

Weddel explained the importance of listening to the challenge’s description, particularly the detail about the family’s boutique business. “Hearing that they run a chic, eclectic shop, designers should know these are women who are on trend with color and style,” she said. “They have to tune into these key words, because the judges certainly will.”

Weddel also emphasized that contestants were judged on more than meets the eye. “It’s not just what’s the prettiest,” she said. “Mechanics count too. We have to move the designs later, and they need to not fall over.”

Butera elaborated on the criteria by which judges evaluate, saying, “floral designers use the same principles as artists — they’re concerned with form, space, pattern and texture.” He noted that, at his shop, Butera the Florist in York, Pa., clients have become increasingly enchanted with this last attribute. “We’ve become a tactile-deprived society,” he said. “We’re so accustomed to smooth smartphone screens, that we just crave something with texture.” For years, he watched customers immediately smell their arrangements; “now they touch,” he said.

In the final minutes of the competition, before spectators and contestants were ushered out for judging, Butera — cognizant of the consumers in the crowd —plugged SAF-commissioned research studies from Rutgers University that highlight flowers’ emotional impact. “There is scientific proof,” he said. “Flowers have an immediate effect on happiness.”

SAF President Bob Williams II, AAF, PFCI, who was in the audience, backed up Butera’s scientific reference with a personal anecdote, sharing how, before a recent Valentine’s Day, he overheard a man in the gym saying he wasn’t buying his wife flowers because she said, “they just die.” “That is not something the incoming president of the Society of American Florists wants to hear,” he said. “So I told him to buy her the flowers and, if she wasn’t thrilled, I’d pick up the tab.” A few days later, the man told Williams his wife was elated with the floral design.

“What’s so great about the Sylvia Cup is that we actually get to see customized product — which makes such an emotional impact — develop before our own eyes,” Williams said.

 


Katie Hendrick


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