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Richard Christiansen Q&A

Los Angeles, USA

The founder of Los Angeles’ Flamingo Estate tells D/A UK about the launch of a global partnership with JW Marriott and his anti-innovation philosophy – plus what’s next

Flamigo Estate x JW Marriot collaboration

Scent, sound and taste. That was he starting point for the spry collaboration between the indie hillside Los Angeles darling, Flamingo Estate, and the monolith hotel group’s five star well-being focused brand, JW Marriott. 

And in the spirit of love for wellness and gardens, this duo has launched a series of comely products, including: an herbaceous scent with Holy Basil, white lotus flowers and rosemary that greets guests upon arrival at select JW Marriott properties, which is also encapsulated in their signature candle hand poured in Los Angeles; exclusive playlists corresponding with the distinct energy of times of the day which will greet guests and be seamlessly integrated into a stay; plus a signature California wildflower honey with adaptogenic Holy Basil and Bergamot.

And the partnership makes so much sense. Flamingo Estate, today, is the home and orchard of Richard Christiansen (founder of Chandelier Creative and Owl Bureau) where he meticulously restored and expanded the estate with the Paris-based design-duo Studio KO. And now they offer nourishing botanicals, produce and provisions from a diverse ecosystem of makers and growers – think bath and body products, candles, tinctures, oils, honey, fresh flowers and more. All done with a care, an enormous consideration and a besetting attention to detail. 

Honey harvest at Flamingo Estate
The collection includes a hand-poured candle and wildflower honey

DA: Indulge us: what is your philosophy for Flamingo Estate?

RC: That radical pleasure is a human right – it’s printed on every one of our boxes – and that Mother Nature is the last great luxury house. It’s really very simple. 

 

DA: Why did you create these specific products and what else is going to be introduced? 

RC: I often say we are in the hospitality business. At Flamingo Estate we don’t sell rooms, but we do want people to feel warm and loved. For me that happens with scent and taste. So when guests arrive at JW Marriott, they have the luxury of time, and they are probably exhausted from a long flight. We created a candle scent that expands your sense of calm, with notes of white florals, lush, green earth, and a base of warm woods. Also our wildflower honey is infused with adaptogenic holy basil and bergamot which also promotes wellbeing and resilience to stress. Finally, we curated sounds that ignite feelings of self – recentering our body to feel a sense of place – morning, afternoon and evening. Inspired very much from the music I listen to when I pick fruit in the orchard or spend the day gardening.

 

DA: And exactly how does your aesthetic work with another brand, like for instance in this case, JW Marriott?

RC: I believe mother nature is the last great luxury house, and we are making her goods. So our branding is always through that lens. I ask myself how we can let the garden be the star. For the pops up I was inspired by some of the old pleasure gardens of Europe, which is how we got inspired to build large columns and plinths. And then the materials all needed to feel tactile. Remember, the Estate was once a prolific porn studio, so touch is very important to the brand. If you close your eyes and run your fingers over the house you will feel rough concrete, cold marble, thick velvet – all these textures to shake your senses awake. So the touch and smell is more important to me than they look.

 

DA: How did you start Flamingo Estate and how did you get to this point? 

RC: In its most simple form, I am a vegetable salesman. We started making everyday essentials from food quality ingredients to help farmers during Covid. It was a simple but radical idea – to make new things directly from the best organic farmers because their produce was rotting during Covid (the restaurants were closed). In the first few years we made over 150 things, from more than 125 regenerative farms and indigenous communities. 

A New York pop-up following the launch of the collection
Please don’t come to us for innovation. We’re just making things the old fashioned way, the way we all forgot. And maybe that is the most radical thing to do right now.

DA: What makes you so different? And how did you capture the zeitgeist the way you did? 

 

RC: In a world drunk on innovation, I believe we need to run in the opposite direction: a return to things made by hand, from farmers we know and love. It begins with your coffee in the morning, and then your shampoo, and your soap, and your lotion, and your candles and your wine at night. Please don’t come to us for innovation. We’re just making things the old fashioned way, the way we all forgot. And maybe that is the most radical thing to do right now. Also – nobody has scaled a brand this way. And I will. And give a big middle finger to the large beauty and consumer goods brands who are fucking the environment.

 

DA: Tell me about the celebrity part of Flamingo Estate? 

 

We’re all so greenwashed. And all so sick of hearing about the environment. And it all gets so earnest and so granola. I want romance and excitement. If we want people to think about the environment differently, we need to show it differently. And we live in LA, the centre of the world’s imagination. Walt Disney lived right near the estate, so we’ve got to put on a show. We enlisted our friends to pull out their big green thumbs and put the culture into horticulture. We made products with Kelly Wearstler, Julianne Moore, LeBron James, Ai WeiWei, Tiffany Haddish, Justin and Hailey Bieber, and many more. We have a new honey from Ed Ruscha’s studio garden coming out in September. And some incredible new designs for all our bottles by Gaetano Pesce launching next year. They were one of the final things he designed before his death. We would have released them already but the designs are so complicated that it took us months to find a glass factory willing to make them.

 

DA: LA is now perhaps our most culturally interesting big city – how do you feel about that? I mean, you’re adding to that, so how do you think it all fits into the world? 

RC: I’ve learned that plants and people need the same things to thrive: lots of sunlight, fresh water, nutrients and some people to care for them. The garden taught me that. And LA has plenty of sunshine and nutrients. These things are quite literally, what makes the world go round. The sun keeps us spinning, fed, nourished, warmed, alive. It is currency and energy – not just for plants, but for all of us, too. I once read that the olive tree is like a solar panel enthusiast. They crave direct, unattended sun. Around 6-8 hours of it daily. In that time, they cook up light and transform it into miracles – like essential nutrient production vital for the tree’s growth, flowering, and fruit production. Resulting in big, ripe, mouth-watering olives. LA has the same effect on me, and all my creative friends. We’re growing like big juicy olives here.