MEET HIGH CAMP SUPPLY - CELEBRITIES' GO-TO GARDENIA BRAND
To simply call High Camp Supply a floral delivery service would be a gross understatement. San Francisco-based expert Susan Hanson founded the ephemeral luxury brand as a corrective measure for the ills of a modern gardenia market. Hardly any florist at the time sold gardenias, and none of them carried the delicate, fragrant flower in bulk. As Ms. Hanson continued trying to recreate the fragrant feeling-state of her time spent in Hawaii, the idea emerged to take matters into her own hands.
“Experiences are more valuable than ‘things’”, said Ms. Hanson on a phone call from her Bay Area home, which is, predictably, covered in gardenias. High Camp Supply has developed somewhat of a cult following, including fashion houses, celebrities, and pillars of the design industry all keep a standing subscription of bloom boxes monthly. Sourcing all of its flowers domestically, the brand has its own gardenia farm in California —a point that served well during the pandemic, as floral competitors struggled to source flowers.
But the nuances of shipping gardenias were not as elegant as the flower itself. “I worked for months, refining the optimal growing methods and shipping flowers to myself until the process was perfected. No one had successfully shipped gardenias en-masse by air before due to the flower’s delicacy,” explained Ms. Hanson. Her imaginative, effervescent gift boxes oftentimes pair with gorgeous, fragrant candles in shapely and elegant glass components. “We were the first to ship gardenias — meaning putting flowers in a box and shipping them overnight directly to a recipient’s door. We completely changed the look, feel, and expectations of the floral industry.”
While gardenias remain the cornerstone of the brand, High Camp Supply expanded their reach to exotic, large white lilies, and new iterations of their famous candles. Substituting wicks for wooden burning methods, High Camp Supply’s candles have the added benefit of hearing the light cracklings of a campfire.
Though the company’s elegant branding and crisp, indulgent photography feel very on target for the age of static Instagram ads and #flowerporn, the boxes themselves are undoubtedly designed to be savored in three dimensions, and through every sense. Ms. Hanson’s team picks and arranges the very best blooms, and while the delivery requires some assembly, there’s practically no room for human error. The blooms, usually several dozen white, well-packed stems, arrive in a box with built-in cooling measures. Placed in a vase, spread throughout the home, or simply blooms floating in a bowl of water — the gift of High Camp gardenias is unmatched in fragrance and feeling.
