In the midst of the pandemic, Silvia Plebani, a 30-years-old art director from Florence, decided to leave the security of an ongoing career to follow her passion and launch her new business, NOP (nop only plants).
What seemed to be a risky decision turned into a success, to which journalist Marco Gemelli dedicated an article published on Forbes Italy.
“NOP – explains the young Italian entrepreneur – is a virtual market for people who love plants. It is a niche trade of plants and design objects with a green soul.”
Through an Instagram profile that now has 18 thousand followers and a digital shop, customers can buy rare plants from the most hidden corners of the world, from the tropical jungles of Panama to the wilderness of Costa Rica. NOP also sells capsule collections and unique design objects made by local artisans and artists, part of a carefully selected network of small quality producers.
Silvia Plebani selects new plants to add to her shop through careful research. When the pandemic made it complex to travel, her research went online. She roamed the internet in search of small farmers from all around the world, from Spain to South America to Japan, buying “all sorts of cuttings, bulbs, and substrates“.
Now Silvia hopes she will soon be able to visit the places where her plants grow. “I have already bought tickets to Indonesia. I am also planning to visit Hawaii and then Jordan,” she said.
Before launching NOP, Silvia worked for ten years as an Art director for an advertising agency. Her decision to leave an ongoing career behind was courageous. “I decided that I wanted to change course and launch a project of my own, starting from something that gives me pure energy, plants. I realized how much people become alienated from nature by living in big cities and spending their days behind computer screens. Plants remind us of our intimate bond with nature, and they teach us not to force time and to take care of what surrounds us,” says Silvia Plebani.
“Studies show us that plants make us healthier, more efficient, stimulate our creativity as well as purify the air we breathe,” concludes Silvia Plebani. “My goal is to make the experience of buying a new plant as wonderful as the plants themselves.”
