Exclusive news from Loulou Moxom and a whole new chapter is blooming for one of our favourite florists
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The face of Lonsdale Street Braddon is changing with a new chapter for Moxom & Whitney…
On most days, you could spot Loulou Moxom before you even reached the door of her iconic florist, Moxom & Whitney.
There was the colour first – bright scarves knotted into her hair, layered bangles and fabrics, florals clashing joyfully with florals – and then the laugh. Warm, infectious, unmistakable. The kind of chortle that made strangers linger, dogs pull on their leads, regulars feel instantly at home.
For more than a decade, that presence has been part of the rhythm of Lonsdale Street. Now, the business she built there is changing shape – moving online and to a studio and garden on her property in Yass – in what Lou describes as “the hardest decision of my life.”
“It’s really important people understand this,” she says. “Moxom & Whitney isn’t ending. You can still buy from us, we’re still doing weddings and events, we’re still delivering every day. You just can’t walk into the shop anymore.”
Founded in 2012 and opening its doors on Lonsdale Street the following year, Moxom & Whitney quickly became far more than a florist. It was a place people wandered into just to look, to talk, to bring their dogs or just take a deep breath among the blooms and greenery.
“I’d be bumbling around, talking to people, loving people, loving their dogs,” Lou says. “That was the joy of it.”
Lou started the business with her dear friend Belinda Whitney in the aftermath of profound loss. Her husband, Jason Wallis, had died from melanoma, and Belinda was with her through every hospital visit, every day in hospice.
Loulou Moxom and Belinda Whitney
“If you were ever going to start a business with someone,” Lou says, “…you’d want it to be someone that loyal, that protective.”
Grief reshaped everything – including how Lou wanted to work. “Jason always said, ‘Life isn’t a dress rehearsal. You don’t get a second chance,’” she says. “After he died, I thought, ‘This is it. I’m not playing safe anymore.’”
At the time, Canberra floristry felt formulaic to her. “Everyone was colouring inside the lines,” Lou says. “I wanted to see where floristry could go if you really pushed it.”
From the beginning, Moxom & Whitney did things differently – loose, sculptural arrangements, unexpected combinations, terrariums made in-house, and a shop designed to feel like a lived-in home rather than a retail space.
The traders and customers of Lonsdale Street embraced the vibe, many becoming friends with Lou. The shop became a neighbourhood anchor. There were extraordinary highs along the way – flowers for major galleries and institutions, for royalty, and for countless weddings and events. Just last month, Lou unknowingly created the bouquet for the the wedding of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Jodie Haydon.
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“I didn’t know who it was for,” Lou recalls. “But that’s the point. Whether it’s for a street sweeper or the Prime Minister, the bouquet has to be full of love. If it’s not perfect in my eyes, it doesn’t go out.”
Beneath the beauty, though, the economics of floristry have become brutal. Fresh flowers are perishable and expensive. “Every delivery is about two thousand dollars wholesale,” Lou explains. “If no one walks through the door, you’re just watching that money die.”
The pressures compounded over time. “We had years that went from fire to flood, or was it flood to fire, to COVID… then the street was literally closed down for a year. Looking back, that was the beginning of the end. We lost a lot of regular customers.”
Rent kept rising and flower prices kept rising, while foot traffic dropped. “There are days when one or two people come in,” she says. “I just can’t afford to keep propping that up anymore. The truth is that there’s nothing left to prop it up with.”
Eventually, the choice became stark: radically change how the business operates or lose everything. “That was my reality,” Lou says. “After nearly 14 years, that’s a punch in the gut.”
Photo by Ginger Gorman
Moving the business to Yass is both terrifying and quietly hopeful. From a studio on her property, Lou will continue running Moxom & Whitney online, creating wedding and event florals, and delivering across the region. The shift also allows something new – growing her own flowers.
“We’ve literally ripped up the backyard,” she says. “I’m not a flower grower, but the idea of walking out and choosing a bloom we’ve grown ourselves, or planting something just for a particular bride so it flowers at exactly the right time – that’s incredibly exciting.”
It also allows her to work more sustainably, in an industry built on waste. “If I’m going to take a bloom’s life,” Lou says, “I want to honour it. Creatively. Properly.”
There is fear in this next chapter. Lou doesn’t hide it. “Everything I have pivots on this working,” she says. “I’m scared. But I’m hopeful too.”
What she hopes most is that Canberra understands what this moment really is. Not an ending, but a transformation. A beloved business changing shape in order to survive.
“Moxom & Whitney is still here,” Lou says. “I just need people to keep coming with me. I need your love and support more than ever.”
