Our customer Tinna Bjarnadottir from Iceland shares her remarkable experience at the Singapore Garden Festival, where creativity, determination and improvisation took centre stage.
Pushing the Boundaries of Floral Artistry: My Journey at the Singapore Garden Festival
Competing on the international stage is a dream for any floral designer, but standing among 17 of the world's leading artists at the Singapore Garden Festival's Floral Windows to the World Championship (FWWC) was an experience of a lifetime. Held at the iconic Gardens by the Bay, this high-stakes live competition tested every ounce of my skill, stamina, and creativity. But more than anything, it tested my resilience. Looking back, I am profoundly grateful for the unwavering support of Barendsen, whose world-class floral product became the ultimate anchor when everything else went wrong.
Five months of intense preparation, meticulous designing, engineering, and practicing evaporated in an instant when a shipping nightmare struck: none of my custom structures or tools arrived in Singapore. In fact, they didn't show up until the day after I finished competing.
This meant that my highly intricate, deeply personal layout, which featured custom metal structures embedded with hand-collected red lava rocks and seating I had meticulously upholstered in unique fish skin leather, completely went down the drain.
I would not have wanted to go through this crazy adventure without my incredible team: my assistant Bjarmi Fannar Irmuson and my mom Guðbjörg Anna Árnadóttir. After the initial shock subsided, they truly stepped in and became the rock-solid support I needed the moment it became clear that the pallet would not arrive in time.
Together, we refused to give up. We brainstormed, decided to embrace total improvisation, and headed straight to the local IKEA. We scouted for anything that could serve as a functional skeleton for a world-class floral installation. In what can only be described as a design miracle, we built an entirely new concept on the fly. While it was nothing like the intricate layout I had planned for months, I walked away incredibly proud of the structural feat we achieved out of thin air.
Through all this chaos, Barendsen was my saving grace. While my mechanics were completely compromised, my floral material was absolutely flawless. In fact, during the official judges' review, the panel explicitly commented on how incredible the flowers looked and noted that the quality was clearly top-notch.
The breathtaking strength and premium condition of the Barendsen flowers meant that even when stripped of my custom frameworks, the stems themselves did the heavy lifting. They hydrated beautifully, stood up to the grueling live competition environment, and brought the vibrancy and luxury needed to shine under the global spotlight.
Given that this was my very first major international competition, and considering the absolute mountain of challenges we faced, finishing in 16th place was an outcome I am genuinely proud of. To pull off a completed, judged display under those conditions was a victory in itself.
This competition didn't go according to plan, but it taught me that true artistry isn't just about executing a script, it's about thriving in the wild. Thank you, Barendsen, for providing the exceptional product that kept my dream alive on the world stage and stood up to the highest standards of international judging when the odds were completely stacked against us.
