Born in Sri Lanka, rooted in Rome and always on the move, Sharon Beyer builds flowers into structures, wearables and stories. This year a Thai breeder named his nearly black Dendrobium after her.
Sharon Beyer is an international structural floral designer based in Rome. Born in Sri Lanka, she is half Sri Lankan and half German, and she brings that mixed identity into everything she makes. Her work travels between cultures and between disciplines, from the flower table to the fashion shoot, from an orchid farm in Thailand to a masterclass in Belgium. Since August 2026, her name also lives on in a flower: Dendrobium Black Pearl 'Sharon' , a nearly black orchid bred in Thailand.
Sharon describes herself as a structural floral designer, and you see it in every piece. Her designs start with a framework of round reed, wire, or natural lines, and the flowers are placed into that framework so the whole work has architecture and movement. Her design philosophy brings together nature, structure, sustainability, craftsmanship and contemporary artistic expression.
For Sharon, flowers are a medium for storytelling, emotion, culture and artistic communication. That is why so much of her work is made to be worn. A headpiece, a shoulder piece, a bridal structure: the flowers move with the body and become part of the story the wearer tells.
Rome is home, but Sharon travels a lot. She works on magazine shoots in Bangkok, walks the shade houses of Thai orchid farms, and this autumn alone she flew to Belgium for a masterclass and visited growers in the Netherlands with her friend, Texas floral designer Tricia Won. Next to her floral work, she also works as a freelancer for Anna Fendi Wine, and one of her designs was published by the American trade magazine Florists' Review.
You can follow her work on Instagram at @sharon.artworks, where she shares her designs under the hashtag #sharonsart.
Even with years of experience, Sharon keeps learning. On 27 September 2026, she joined The One-Day Bloom Up Experience with Belgian floral designer Tom De Houwer at the Landcommanderij Alden Biesen in Bilzen, Belgium, during Féerie Florale. The class was limited to twelve participants and ran from ten in the morning until five in the afternoon. Tricia Won was the one who connected Sharon with Tom.
Afterwards, Sharon called it a "brain-feeding and mind blowing lecture" and thanked Tom for his patience and for respecting her ideas. In her words, a designer feels there are no limitations when the mentor is empathetic and wants to give.
One of her most recent projects is a bridal structure bouquet for a magazine shoot in Bangkok. Sharon combined Dendrobium, lotus , and the perfume of jasmine, the last of which was worked into a Ma-Lai, the traditional Thai flower garland . Pale green anthurium, closed lotus buds and long looping blades of grass give the bouquet its shape, and a jasmine garland finishes the model's hair.
The model was Bam, and the pictures were taken by Sharon's eldest daughter, photographer Maya Gibellato. Sharon credited the Thai garland artists of @malai_n_thaiart for the Ma-Lai technique, a good example of how she likes to bring local craft into her own designs.
Sharon is the mother of three daughters, and they are part of her work. Maya is behind the camera, and Sharon's daughters regularly model her wearable designs . That close circle gives her shoots a warm, personal feeling, even when the setting is a glass tower in Bangkok or a garden in Rome.
Sustainability is part of her signature. Sharon prefers mechanics that can be used again, and she is especially interested in reusable systems such as the rings of the Swedish company Hanataba. For her, the attitude of reusing to reduce is as important as the flowers themselves.
Through her travels and her love for Thai flower culture, Sharon met the team behind a remarkable orchid: a Dendrobium so dark it looks almost black. The breeder, Mr. Akenat (Mana) Kujaroenchaimanatee of Mana Orchid Farm in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand, named it after her. Dendrobium Black Pearl 'Sharon' was registered on 7 August 2026, and it stands for a bridge between Thailand and Italy, between science and design, and between orchid cultivation and contemporary floral art.
Read the full story of the orchid in our article about Dendrobium Black Pearl 'Sharon' , and see how Sharon wears it in her black orchid fashion designs .
Sharon Beyer is an international structural floral designer based in Rome, Italy. She was born in Sri Lanka and is half Sri Lankan and half German.
She works structurally, building frameworks of round reed, wire and natural lines and placing flowers into them. Her philosophy combines nature, structure, sustainability, craftsmanship and contemporary art, and she often makes wearable designs.
Dendrobium Black Pearl 'Sharon', a nearly black Dendrobium bred by Mr. Akenat Kujaroenchaimanatee of Mana Orchid Farm in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand, registered on 7 August 2026.
On Instagram at @sharon.artworks, using the hashtag #sharonsart.
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