INTERIOR DESIGNERS DRAW UP PLANS FOR A BRIGHT FUTURE IN SASKATOON
ATMOSPHERE INTERIOR DESIGN
When Curtis Elmy and Trevor Ciona moved to Saskatoon in 2003, they struggled to find work as designers. A year later, they gave up and started their own company.
“I think sometimes the more discouraged you get with unemployment and the lack of opportunities, it kind of motivates you to light a fire,” Elmy said. “Like, I don’t need anybody else, I’ll do this on my own.”
The Saskatchewan natives spent the next decade building Atmosphere Interior Design into one of the city’s pre-eminent design firms. It wasn’t always easy. At first, they took on every job, no matter how small, Elmy said.
“Like any small business, when you start it’s ups and downs. But we landed some really great projects, and I think the key to our early success was that we thought big and we designed big.”
Eventually, Elmy was able to quit his full-time job and focus his attention on the growing company.
He attributes its growth to a big vision in a small city, as well as its owners’ divergent yet complementary skill sets.
“I’m very much a graphic designer — a very technical, computer-based skill set,” Elmy said.
“And Trevor is creative. He’s really the creative driving force behind our business. He’s an amazing artist.”
Those skills, as well as countless hours of hard work, allowed the company to grow and expand. Earlier this month, Atmosphere moved into a new space on Avenue B South, complete with a showroom open to the public.
Elmy said the new space reflects the growth of the business, from simple design projects in the beginning to a full suite of services — including full house and office furnishing projects — today.
Elmy said they do their best work on large, comprehensive projects, and their new 5,000-square-foot showroom gives potential clients a taste of what to expect from the firm.
“But, at the end of the day, when I say that, we remember in 2003 when (smaller clients) phoned, so we still try to take on as many projects as we can, because those are the clients that built our business.”
That’s part of the reason why neither Elmy nor Ciona has plans to leave Saskatoon anytime soon. Elmy said while working in the city was a struggle at first, he wouldn’t change anything now.
“We have no aspirations of leaving our city,” he said.
“The city is where we wanted to be, and where we love to be, and our clients are allowing us to do things that (designers) in big cities don’t get to do (and) that’s its own reward.”
Atmosphere Interior Design Address: #109—123 Ave. B South Phone: 306-373-3004 Web: Atmosphereid.ca Hours: Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
SOVA HAT SHOPPE
It’s often thought that John F. Kennedy’s reluctance to wear a hat while in office ended the decades-long trend of wearing hats in public, but Sherri Hrycay doesn’t agree.
The Saskatoon-based milliner attributes the hat’s decline to the rise of cheap offshore manufacturing and the subsequent disappearance of craftspeople — a shift she is trying to reverse with her new store in a core neighbourhood.
“My stay-at-home mom project went out of control,” Hrycay said with a laugh, referring to the home-based hat-making business she started in 2003 that has since grown into a combined studio and retail store in City Park.
Hrycay spent several years working as a teacher in Calgary before quitting her job and moving home to Saskatoon to raise her children. Eventually, she started looking for something to occupy her time, and landed on an old fascination. “I used to draw fashion ( but) I didn’t know that you could actually get a job doing that at the time,” she said. “It was just what I liked to do — I was always designing.”
Hrycay started taking classes in pattern and couture drafting, and eventually found her attention drawn to millinery — the art of making hats. In 2010, she travelled to London to study with a well-known English milliner.
“There are so many designers out there … and I wanted to do something different,” she said.
Hrycay opened her first pop-up shop in Saskatoon about three years ago. That quickly led to her opening Sova Hat Shoppe in the Drinkle No. 3 building on Third Avenue North. Then, a few months ago, she moved again, this time to City Park.
While her new space is slightly smaller, its street-level location means it — and her hats — will be more visible to potential customers — a group of people she believes is growing thanks to surging interest in quality handmade items.
“You see the trend of the big stores closing shop, right? And yet the little ones are thriving, because you have this relationship with people … You want that corner store where you can see things being made.”
Fashion has shifted dramatically since the 1960s, but Hrycay believes hats are poised to make a comeback — and she wants to be part of it.
“Anybody can wear a hat,” she said. “I stress that all the time. There is one out there for everybody, and I can find it for sure.”
Sova Hat Shoppe Address: #5—801 7th Ave. North Phone: 306-384-3399 Hours: Monday to Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
If you have started, expanded or moved a small business in Saskatoon within the last few months, contact Alex MacPherson at 306-657-6210 or amacpherson@postmedia.com. Home-based and temporary businesses, as well as those without physical locations, will not be considered for publication.