DECOR & DESIGN
Buy local when furnishing a home
Back in the day — before the Internet and big-box superstores — the only way to shop was local, so that’s what people did. As the times changed and people’s shopping methods changed with them, neighbourhoods slowly transformed, leaving many local businesses in the lurch.
Thankfully, as people become more aware of how their shopping choices — and dollars — have an impact on the economy, the environment and their very own communities, buying local is on the rise once again.
Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse is one of those people. A 25-year-old Canadian actress born in Montreal, Labrosse recently bought a duplex with her boyfriend and made the decision to furnish and decorate it entirely with local and/or reused items.
“We gave ourselves the challenge of buying stuff that’s made here,” Labrosse said, “even though it can be a little more difficult and requires some research. It just means getting out of the Ikea mentality.”
Labrosse, who starred in popular Quebec shows like Unité 9 and Les pays d’en haut and will be in Xavier Dolan’s first Englishlanguage film set for release in 2017, started becoming more aware of the importance of buying locally when she set up her own online shop, selling homemade knit scarves.
“I started it about four years ago and it has nothing to do with decorating, but it got me conscious about buying local,” said Labrosse, who quickly realized how many local talents were selling their wares online, and started to get familiar with the local business scene. “When we bought our duplex, we started to meet with local people who had their own shops and businesses.”
One of the local people she met with is François Audet, who has his own woodworking business called Design, Ébénisterie Audet.
We gave ourselves the challenge of buying stuff that’s made here, even though it can be a little more difficult and requires some research.
Labrosse and her boyfriend drew the furniture they wanted, such as an entertainment unit, a kitchen island, bathroom cabinets and a bed, and Audet custom-made it all out of Russian birch.
“The way we found to have inexpensive furniture that looks luxurious and was made here was to have it custom-made,” Labrosse said. “There’s continuity in the house, because we used the same material for everything, and Audet was great; he’s very precise and wants us to be happy.”
Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse is this month’s ambassador for Boutique Vestibule, a lifestyle shop on StLaurent Blvd. that launched a campaign at the beginning of the year to promote buying locally made items.
“The owner (Audrey Morissette) of Vestibule contacted me about a year ago, before I bought my place, to see if I was willing to promote the buy-local way of shopping,” said Labrosse, referring to the boutique’s #MonVestibule campaign.
“It’s not a franchise; she started it from nothing and she’s trying to carry a lot of local designers. Since it’s something I want to promote, I got involved.”
The #MonVestibule campaign, which launched in January 2016, saw 12 Quebec female personalities promoting the local business and others like it in the trendy Mile End neighbourhood — one for every month of the year.
“We asked women that were already clients of Boutique Vestibule if they would help others discover the shop, the neighbourhood and shopping small,” said Morissette, who came up with the idea along with the boutique’s communications agency, CHAD Communications.
“The idea behind the project was to make people realize that you can find everything locally, and that it’s not more expensive.”
As a lifestyle shop, Vestibule carries clothing and jewelry in addition to small furniture, tableware, candles and other home decor items, including an assortment of unique knobs and hooks. Not all of it is made locally, but what isn’t is made equitably.
“I think it’s important to encourage the community here,” Morissette said.
“We have so many people that do beautiful things.
“Instead of buying them from elsewhere, why not get them here instead?”
Gautier Studio is a slow-design brand of furnishings and accessories that are designed and created
in Quebec, in partnership with the designers of MPGMB (a Montreal based-duo made up of Marie-Pier Guilmain and Maud Beauchamp), using natural materials like wood. The brand sells everything from seating and storage to cushions and rugs, as well as a kid-friendly Play collection, much of which is carried by Boutique Vestibule.
Meanwhile, Labrosse’s personal decorating challenge is almost at an end; all she has left to find for her home is some affordable, locallymade lighting.
In the rare cases when she wasn’t able to find exactly what she was looking for locally, she turned to Canadian retailers like Linen Chest, which got its start more than 50 years ago in Quebec, and West Elm, which offers a wide range of sustainable and FSC-certified fur- niture.
We asked women that were already clients of Boutique Vestibule if they would help others discover the shop, the neighbourhood and shopping small. The idea was to make people realize that you can find everything locally ...