We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kelsey Ledezma a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kelsey thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

I get asked this a lot and I always love explaining where it came from. As a kid going through chemo and becoming disabled I spent a lot of time passing the time in the hospital and one of my favorite ways of doing so was to watch movies. Not in like a film buff kind of way where I knew all movies, more like in a repetitive way where I had a few favorites and I’d cycle through them. Anyway, one of my favorites – maybe my most favorite was the 1951 animated Alice in Wonderland. The whole film spoke to what I felt the world was telling me about me. There’s a scene in movie where Alice is talking to the flowers, she’s eaten the mushroom and has shrunk to a tiny size, smaller than the flowers. When the flowers question her as to what kind of genus she is and she doesn’t know they call her a “Mobile Vulgaris”, Alice responds “ a what??” And the flower says “to put it bluntly, a weed”. Alice yells back at them “I am not a weed! And if i were my rightful size I’d pick every last one of you”!
As a kid and growing up into an adult it was made pretty clear to me that I the world considered me a weed. That my life to them was undesirable and it most certainly could never be beautiful. I never thought that though. I always knew that I would make my life a beautiful place to be. When it came to naming my business, there was a sense of power, maybe a little bit of “I told you so” with the name. Not only did I create a very beautiful life for myself but now people call me to create the beautiful atmosphere where their most remembered moments will happen.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Kelsey Ledezma-Rebollo I am a 32 year old disabled woman, sister, favorite auntie and wife. I am also the owner and lead designer at Mobile Vulgaris, a high-end floral design studio based in North County San Diego.

To be completely transparent, the story of how Mobile Vulgaris came to be and how I got into the floral industry is complicated. My love for flowers started young but wasn’t something I considered as a career option until much later.
i was originally working in post-production sound for series and film. I wasn’t super happy in it, spending my days in dark sound proof rooms not really getting the type of projects I was passionate about. On a whim I decided to take up a hobby, I needed something to inspire me, to keep me going really. I decided on gardening, I had always loved flowers and thought the drastic difference from sound design would be good for me and my boyfriend (now husband) was pretty excited about it too so we thought we’d give it a go together.
It started pretty small, with just a couple pots. He really focused on fruits and vegetables while I was all about the flowers. We’re both the type of people that when we find something we like, we go pretty hard at it. We read all the books, did all the research, and probably spent more time in our garden than working. By the time the season was over our back yard was covered, I mean we even grew a small patch of corn. Our garden had really become our favorite place. We cooked with home grown ingredients and I explored floral design with the flowers I grew myself.

A year later, mid season, I received a text message from one of my oldest and best friends. She said she had something she needed to tell me. I don’t know why but instantly my body felt limp and I had a pit in my stomach as I watched the three little dots appear on my screen.
I can remember the exact words “I don’t know how else to say this, I have breast cancer”.
My world went upside down, Michelle and I had already been down this road with my own cancer diagnosis. We were young during mine, but it was most certainly part of the frame work for the people we became and the choices we made.

It wasn’t long after we would learn her cancer was stage four and all we could hope for was some bought time. The next 18 months would be the hardest months of our lives. During the peak of her treatment I was dealing with a medical issue where I was bleeding out into my own body with no apparent or found reason as to why. I wish I could say that this didn’t steal what time we had left together but it took a huge piece of it.

There weren’t many places I could find comfort but my garden was one. That’s kind of the thing about flowers, their purpose even. What else do we give in grief, in celebration, in welcoming life and saying goodbye to it.

When Michelle died in March of 2018 I was shattered. I had thought if this were to happen there would be time to process it, maybe that the world would slow down but the opposite happened. Everything felt sped up and some kind of change needed to be made. In the following days I quit post production sound and started designing full time. The very first arrangements made under the Mobile Vulgaris name were in honor of Michelle for her memorial service.

Almost five years later Mobile Vulgaris offers full floral design for weddings, events and private parties. Which basically means we design and create all the pretty stuff.. or at least a lot of it. I’d say one of the biggest things that sets mobile Vulgaris apart from other floral design businesses is our interest in creating a more inclusive environment. One of the first things you’ll notice about me is that I am a full time wheelchair user. In my time as a floral designer I have always been the only visibly, physically disabled person in the room, and that’s across all vendors. Mobile Vulgaris works to expand on inclusivity and equity for all creatives especially in gig and event work.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

This is a great question, team morale is something we care a lot about at Mobile Vulgaris. When it comes to working in floral design there are a lot of variables that I think a lot of people don’t think about. Often when you tell people you work in floristry they respond with “oh must be nice to play with flowers all day” and don’t realize that the moment we have the flowers its a race.. against EVERYTHING. It can be incredibly stressful so making sure everyone is feeling the best they can be, together is important. – the first piece of advice I can give, and where I feel like morale really starts is paying your people what they are worth. At Mobile Vulgaris we make sure everyone is make a living wage. We want anyone who works with us to know that we value them, their time, their skill and we recognize that they have a life to live outside of us.
– making sure you are familiar with the skill each person brings to the project and placing them accordingly. We want everyone to feel good about what they are bringing to life and not every person has the same experience as the next. When it comes to building with flowers and foliage, it can get very intimidating very quickly if you don’t really know what you’re doing so we always make it a point to have people doing what they are comfortable with or working closely with someone who can show them the ropes. When people feel comfortable communication flows better, we aren’t afraid to ask questions or to ask for help. We’re all about that here.
– little things go a long way! I learned a long time ago that having Capri Sun on site will do wonders for giving your team a second wind. Now, we always pack a small cooler with beverages and have a little stock pile of snacks. Hangry floral designers are not what anyone needs believe me! We also bring some essentials just in case, a first aid kit, some Advil and sunscreen. And we share!
The biggest piece of advice I can really give is to just treat your people the way you would want to be treated. I think in these times we often try to think of all these “hacks” and “tricks” but the truth is people just want to be treated well and like human beings. Make sure your people are hydrated, make sure they get their breaks and take an actual interest in who they are, teams are not one way relationships, that’s forgotten a lot.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I love this question. As a kid I was always considered a little.. weird?.. I mean now I think it’s called “alternative”. I didn’t go to school the way other people my age did and so I think I felt less worried about fitting in and focused more on my own personal style. I’ve never been one for trends, to be honest I’m usually ahead of them and honestly I typically find them boring. Being a creative lets me put my style into the world and even more than that it’s connected me to people who feel similarly about thinking and working outside the box. One thing we always say at Mobile Vulgaris is that we aren’t here for everyone but who we are here for, we’re really here for. There is something so validating and special about meeting and creating for people who get you and you them, its a truly beautiful thing.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.mobile-vulgaris.com
• Instagram: @mobile_vulgaris

Image Credits
Celina Kenyon Andie Avery