Jeanette Momeni loved picking flowers in the meadows near her childhood home in Hamburg, Germany. As in many European homes, fresh bouquets were an everyday part of life.
“You didn’t need a special event to buy flowers,” says Momeni.
When she married and moved to Washington, D.C., 10 years ago, she got a job working with a decorator but soon realized flowers were her real passion. She took floral design classes in Paris to learn new techniques and styles. She created bouquets for friends and family, and soon was getting lots of requests.
Last March, she opened Fleurgreige, a European-style flower shop in a lofted space in the city’s Georgetown section. There, she composes arrangements, sells small, reasonably priced bouquets and holds flower design classes.
Momeni starts most mornings at the wholesale flower market, handpicking what looks fresh and inspiring. She comes back with armloads of ivy, vines, berries and the freshest flowers she sees.
“I’m very picky,” she says. “I like to mix materials, just like in your home you mix wood, glass and velvet.” She selects unexpected vases, such as moss-lined baskets and leaf- covered cylinders. “I like to be different from those glass cubes that you see everywhere,” she says.
As for the name of her studio, Momeni is devoted to her signature color, greige, which is a combination of gray and beige. The shop walls are painted this color (Benjamin Moore Aura’s Dolphin). Her bouquets come wrapped in greige paper. She says, “I think this color sets off everything, especially the flowers.” Momeni’s flower businesss sits above the shop of antiques dealer Marston Luce, who hired the designer this year to gently bring the festive winter season into his home with well-placed fresh flowers, plants and other natural decor — but no Christmas tree.
Their collaboration actually began weeks earlier when Momeni decorated Luce’s store window for the holidays. The woodland garden theme was inspired by a twisted wisteria branch Momeni found at a local flower market. They nestled two 19th-century French concrete deer in gray reindeer moss, filled the corners with birch logs and branches and hung a 19th-century French silver leaf chandelier over the whole scene.
Soon, people were crowding around the fairy-tale window. “It’s a bit of a magical fantasy, a peaceful forest scene,” says Momeni.
After the window’s debut, Luce asked Momeni to dress up his 1929 center-hall colonial with a holiday decor that was natural, handpicked and long-lasting.
Her philosophy is to let the natural beauty of flowers come through. “It’s best if it looks like somebody went walking through a forest or field and gathered everything in a soft, natural bouquet,” she says.
“Having flowers doesn’t have to be complicated or involve spending a lot of money. Take care of them and change the water a lot and they’ll last longer.”
