Audrée Larose and Félix Guyon are two young and passionate Quebec designers dedicated to the creation of outstanding lighting fixtures and other original objects worked out down to the last detail. Audrée and Félix entrusted us with the making of a packaging for their newest project, a jewelry line, that will be launched in the upcoming months. We met both of them during this year's ICFF exhibition at New York and learned more about Larose Guyon, their design studio, and their artistry.
Q: Your work is so unique, how did you decide to specialize in lighting and the design of other authentic objects?
A: We’ve met four years ago and knew we wanted to create our own design studio that would reflect who we are. At first, we started with designing small decorative objects in copper. It helped us better define our design vision and learn how to work with specific materials such as copper, steel, brass, etc.
A few months later, we started looking for that special item that would make a difference and that was when we chose lighting. Since then, we've been creating lighting fixtures with a touch of romance and poetry at our Verchères studio, along the Saint Lawrence river, near Montreal.
Q: What is the greatest challenge you’ve faced?
A: Design is our biggest passion; we absolutely love designing our products, our website, our brand's identity and we enjoy every minute of the process, but if we had to think of the most challenging part of our work, that would be to actually manage a company. We’re learning something new every day and try to overcome obstacles with a positive mindset. We know we'll have to deal with it for quite some time to come, but this is also part of being an entrepreneur!
Q: What is it that distinguishes you from other studios in your field?
A: Design is everywhere, there are no boundaries in it and we feel very lucky to be part of such a diverse and talented community! What we are trying to do with Larose Guyon is to develop our very own aesthetic and style, being greatly inspired from the jewelry world, as we absolutely think that there are links between jewellery and lighting; jewellery brings character to an outfit the same way fixtures bring character to a living space!
We definitely believe in magic and try our best to create special items that convey a sense of warmth and elegance!
Q: Who would you cite as some of your influences?
A: We’ve been really inspired by the work of Lindsay Adelman and Ingo Maurer and the way they use light to create something extraordinary and not just a decorative object.
Q: What is the most rewarding part of your job?
A: It's simply to receive pictures of our fixtures installed in our clients' homes, accompanied with words of gratitude and appreciation!
Q: Apart from business partners you are also life partners. How easy is it for a couple to work together?
A: It's very challenging for sure, but it's mainly a gift and a privilege to work with the person you love and to be able to grow and evolve together! We complete each other, as we have distinct strengths and weaknesses, and work on different aspects of our business, so this is really helpful!
And it's always very stimulating and exciting to build a project together on a day-to-day basis!
Q: What is a common misconception people have about what you do?
A: People often think that we only do the design of our products, but all of the assembling is also done in our studio. We have a small team working meticulously on every piece we produce.
Q: What are your dreams for your studio?
A: Well, we'd like to continue designing, learning, growing and improving!
Q: Any plans for the near future?
A: As we've mentioned before, our biggest source of inspiration is jewelry, so we’ve decided to collaborate with Lidia Raymond, a jewelry maker based in Montreal, in order to create our very own Larose Guyon jewelry, taking cue from our lighting fixtures. Our collection will be launched very shortly and we're extremely happy for this!
Q: Can you explain us the idea behind the packaging we’ve created for your products?
A: So, we were basically looking for a subtle and very elegant packaging for the upcoming launching of our jewelry collection. We needed something that would match the quality of our jewelry pieces and that would be as refined and classy as our gold necklaces.
Q: How did you hear about Madovar?
A: A good friend of ours, also a designer, talked to us about Madovar, as we were looking for something original and very well executed.
Q: How was your collaboration with Madovar?
A: The collaboration was just perfect! Madovar has great experience with jewelry packaging and offered us the exact product we were looking for. We were impressed by the perfect execution of their packaging and the high-end quality, which is not easy to find!
*You can follow Larose Guyon on Facebook, Instagram and Behance!
