Because Magazine’s Little Black Book is far more than your average city guide. An insider directory to London, as seen through the eyes of our friends in fashion, beauty, fitness, food and the arts – all of them, experts in their fields – it’s your go-to Where’s Where for niche and noteworthy recommendations to help you navigate and use our Capital at its best. This week, the industry's favourite florist, Hayley Newstead, shares her go-to green space to escape the city's madness.



"There's so much ground to cover..."

Where… When I have the time, I head to Hampstead Heath for a good five hours.

Why… Hampstead is really special. It’s so vast. There’s so much ground to cover, with paths and hills and fields and lots of water. It’s quite magical.

Because… Nature has a wonderful skill of making you feel really good, come rain or shine. It’s nourishing. We get so busy and caught up in our professional daily lives and technology everywhere; I find that nature recalibrates my being. The bottom line is that flowers and fauna will always make people happy. 



By her own admission, Hayley Newstead never aspired to be a florist.

"My career started as a Saturday job", she tells us. "I always wanted to be a stylist."

Years on, and flowers have taken the place of fashion for Hayley – and yet, the woman behind Chloé and Moschino’s blooms has diverted her path to traverse the two. ("I’m just using a different medium to express my creative self.")

The rich variety of the natural world offers plenty of opportunity for artistic interpretation, as Hayley demonstrated last year when she created four bouquets to represent the personalities of the fashion capitals – New York, London, Paris, and Milan – exclusively for Because Magazine. Florals’ transformative powers can and should never be underestimated.

And so, we asked Hayley where she roams en plein air, when she’s not busy bringing Mother Nature indoors...


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Also on Because Magazine:

+ Alexa Chung talks feminism and redefining "pretty" with Abigail Gurney-Read.


+ Coco König is beautiful in The First Flush of Spring.


+ This is the beauty edit you need to know now.