a: It started when I was going through a divorce, and I just wanted to keep myself busy. I had been sculpting and living in Mexico, and looking at all the wonderful crafts that they do down there. I put containers of furniture and objects together, shipped them to Vancouver, and invited my daughter-in-law to join me in a business.
We opened at 7th and Granville in 1991. We started with 1200 square feet, then took over the store next door, so we had twice the space. Three years ago, we moved to Seymour and Drake, and took on a couple of partners. It's been continuous growth.
I had studied drafting and interior design. But I started out in Vancouver as a photographic model. At one time, I had a children's store in Park Royal, then I got into the arts, and went down to Mexico, and studied down there. That's my goal some day--to go back to sculpting.
q: How do you pick what goes in your store?
a: We choose what we would want to have in our own homes. We'll go to a huge showroom and maybe pick a few items, and maybe go to a thousand showrooms, and pick just a little. It seems to work.
We buy all over. New York, San Francisco, Indonesia, Europe... It means lots of travelling. It's the perfect job for me, I love it. We're leaving for London on Sunday, then taking the Chunnel to Paris--but this is strictly a vacation.
q: How do you walk that fine line between classic and trendy?
a: We do a lot of basic sofas. They've never been altered. There's a particular type of chair that we buy all the time in different fabrics. You can always add this chair to a contemporary or traditional room. A lot of the stuff just goes on.
It's mainly in accessories that you get trends. Accessories and colours change.
There's a big shift now towards rich colours. For a long time it's been beige, taupe, white. It's much more interesting now. People have options. The world has become so small. There's a lot more Asian and European influence.
