ISYV Magazine: Floral Design with quality & Style

By K. Reka Badger

Gina Crippa’s floral design is known throughout the Valley. Her shop adjoining El Rancho Market has come to meet the needs of an impressive number of clients.

In a tiny shop fronting El Rancho Marketplace, Gina Crippa has created a tropical paradise stocked with baskets, wooden chests, decorative doodads and a jungle of blooming beauties. Despite its diminutive size, Bella Fiori reigns as a powerhouse of floral design, and the first stop for many locals when it’s time to choose that special gift.

A short seven and a half years ago, Crippa opened Bella Fiori on a shoestring, gathering fixtures, shelving, and inventory wherever she could find it for the right price. Without a backward glance, she forged a reputation for service, quality, and voluptuous floral arrangements.

“I use a lot of fruit,” Crippa smiles, describing her signature style, called della robia. “I mix it in with the arrangements. It’s a very old, Italian style of floral design—I also like to use branches with fruit attached—like apples, apricots, pomegranates—and arrange flowers around them. I use eggplant, grapes, curly willow and lots of native branches with berries.”

Petite, slim, and sporting a tousle of silvery blond hair, Crippa fixes a direct gaze on a visitor and admits, “It took me a while to build my business, because generally, I’m very shy. I’m fine in my own little cage here, but it’s very hard to go out and sell myself.”

“I don’t do much advertising,” she admits. “I rely on word-of-mouth and being the best, most honest business person I can be.”

Word-of-mouth has indeed worked its magic, for Bella Fiori enjoys a steady walk-in trade and serves a host of regular accounts, including The Petersen Inn, Herthel’s Alamo Pintado Equine Center, Grappolo’s, Beckmen Vineyards, First American Title, and Christensen and Drake.

“I’m virtually available seven days a week,” Crippa declares. “People can call on Saturday and have something delivered on Sunday. Or if they want to pick something up on Sunday, El Rancho has my key and they will come in and get the arrangement.”

Bella Fiori offers a full spectrum of services, from arranging simple bouquets to creating elaborate floral displays for weddings and parties. To keep the quality high, Crippa hand selects all the orchids and specimen plants.

As for the European-style baskets overflowing with lush greenery and opulent splashes of color, Crippa proudly admits, “I do nearly every single one of those myself. Everything that I have in my shop is truly what I love. I’m not the type to carry merchandise that I don’t like, no matter how popular it is.”
Gina Crippa learned to love plants—and gleaned the basics of business—while working in her mother’s Santa Barbara flower shops.

“I started there when I was 12,” she remembers, “taking care of the plants. As a teenager, I started doing some design and then she put me in charge of the books. Most of my design experience was in New York and I got a lot of my experience from working with other florists.”

When she settled in the Santa Ynez Valley and decided to start her own shop, Crippa wanted a name that would reflect her Italian heritage.

“I asked my father,” Crippa says. “He’s Italian but he lost the language when he was quite young—He started taking Italian lessons when he was older and I asked him how to say ‘beautiful flower,’ and the funny thing is, it’s not correct. People come in and complain about that, but the story is endearing and it really doesn’t matter to me.”

With the growth of her inventory, customer base, and plant care chores, Crippa has gathered a family-like staff to help her run the business.

“Taynah Munn is my main staffer. She’s like a second daughter to me,” Crippa reveals. “She’s worked for me for almost three years.”

Also on board are Terra Edwards, a landscape designer who assists with the floral design, Dan Joseph, a retired gynecologist who concentrates on sales, and Emily Farris, who can be seen zipping around town making deliveries for Bella Fiori.

“I would like to have a second shop, maybe in Buellton,” Crippa speculates about the future, “but I’m a little worried about getting bigger—I don’t want to lose any of the quality and I don’t want to just manage people and not be able to do the arrangements.”

“One of my strongest assets is I’m really good with people,” Crippa says happily. “I love waiting on and talking to people. If I had my druthers, I’d have a really eclectic place with plants, flowers, and furniture. I love doing what I’m doing, even if it’s just feeding and grooming the plants.”