DECORATE YOUR OWN WAY
It’s often the personal touches that make a home’s interior welcoming or inspiring
When it comes to furnishing your home, Thom Fougere, creative director for Canadian retailer EQ3, suggests you just go with what you like and ignore fashionable trends.
“I almost find it a bit damaging to the general public, or consumer, to think about trends,” Fougere says. “Because they kind of exist, but then a lot of stuff is just made up. It really just comes down to what you like, and putting your own touch into your living space.”
Often, says Fougere, when people find the interiors of certain homes inspiring, it’s because of the personal touches that have been added there, instead of a set of rules that are being adhered to.
“There aren’t any hidden rules behind decorating your home,” he says. “It might sound like that sometimes, but there aren’t.”
EQ3 is a home-furnishings company that promotes Canadian design and tries to manufacture as much as possible in Canada — its custom-made sofas are made to order in Winnipeg — and offers a “fresh perspective on living in a modern environment.”
As a company, it tries to convey flexibility, Fougere says. Its booth at IDS (Interior Design Show) Toronto last month, which won a silver for best booth design, and was built to resemble a home environment — living room, dining room and bedroom — previewed their spring collection in colours soft and neutral, but in an “eclectic” range of materials and fabrics.
The new Cello sofa and Cello bed were “inspired by the robust sound and shape of the instrument itself.” The sofa was presented at the show in a stone-hued chenille fabric, new to EQ3, but was offered up as just one suggestion, Fougere says, with many options available.
“Most of our furniture is customizable,” he says. “So the sofa is available in 130 different fabrics and leathers, and the bed is as well. A lot of the marble we showed is available in white and black, so it can really just bend and sway according to the tastes of the consumers. We try and offer that variety, but also have something to say.”
The Cello sofa, which was displayed in a sectional configuration at IDS, and Cello bed are made from memory foam and down, and are EQ3’s most comfortable yet, Fougere says.
“It’s our first collection that encompasses both the living room and bedroom,” he says. “It’s an upholstered bed, with a storage component, and similar to the sofa, it’s a fairly relaxed, comfortable bed. There’s not a lot you can say about a bed, but it is a plush, welcoming form.”
There is often a lot of waste associated with trade shows, Fougere says, in that the installations are mostly built as temporary structures to showcase the product. In contrast to this, Fougere says EQ3 invested heavily in its booth this year (made from flat-packed, reusable wood), and will be using it every year.
“It’s completely reusable, modular construction,” he says. “No waste.”
Alongside EQ3’s Canadiandesigned products, the company carries a designer line (EQ3+) of “iconic brands” like Marimekko and Herman Miller. Their booth at IDS this year was decorated with Herman Miller’s Bubble Pendant Lights, and as part of their spring collection (available mid-March) they’ll be releasing a collection of Herman Miller Environmental Enrichment panels, Fougere says.
“They’re basically screen-printed works of art for the home,” he says.
“The art was originally created by Alexander Girard, I believe, in the ’50s or ’60s, and Herman Miller just recently released them, and they’re available through EQ3, which is pretty cool.”
EQ3 recently celebrated its 15th anniversary and to mark this, it’s releasing what is to be an annual publication called Scrapbook, which is “dedicated to storytelling, and encapsulating the ethos of EQ3.”
It really just comes down to what you like, and putting your own touch into your living space.