Our Story

Hanataba, despite its name, is a Swedish invention. “Hanataba” means bouquet in Japanese, and there is a reason why this little gadget has been given just that name. Almost 20 years ago, I was traveling in Japan and visited a flower school. In Japan, flowers are not arranged in the same way as in the Western world. During that visit, I had an idea to develop a tool or technical solution that could bind a bouquet in a spiral without requiring mastery of the accepted abdominal technique.

I became fixated on the concept that the bouquet could be lifted out of the tool, machine, or whatever it was going to be, but progress stalled. I envisioned that it would require two levels or discs with a number of holes through which the stems would pass. With a twist, the spiral would be achieved. However, I was stumped by the challenge of removing the bouquet…

After many years, the breakthrough idea struck on a beautiful early summer day in a cottage area outside Malmö. During a coffee break, as I pondered my usual thoughts, it suddenly became clear. The intended “bouquet moth” did not need to be removed from the bouquet; it simply needed to be designed so that it became part of the bouquet!

I immediately dashed out to the storage room and began working on what would become the first prototype of Hanataba (which you can see in the photo below). This was in May 2018.

In January 2020, Hanataba was premiered at Formex in Stockholm.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Christian Jonasson

Innovator and CEO / Hanataba Original