Fashion boutique makeover

Social media drives interior design choices

There has been over five years since Le Manoir, a Montreal, Que., boutique offering beauty services, nail expertise and exclusive fashion, first opened its doors to customers.

In an effort to maintain a youthful brand image and expand the retail aspect of the business, Le Manoir owner Émilie Sanscartier mandated Tuxedo to create a new store layout and update the interior design of the salon, located at the intersection of rue Ste-Catherine and St. Laurent Boulevard.

Tuxedo is a creative agency that offers advertising, branding, digital creation, photo and video production, architecture and environmental design. Based in Montreal, Tuxedo does business in Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

The main challenge of this project was to create an environment that would be flexible in functionality. “Clothing and jewelry display was one of the first request she gave us for the design,” says Sarah Tu, lead designer at Tuxedo. “She wanted increase the area of her retail space for local designers who want to sell product in her store.”

According to Laurent Guez, vp environmental design at Tuxedo, “The owner explained why the customers were coming to her store and that they were young and active in social media.

“She wanted something cool, simple, clean and a place where people can post pictures when they try on clothes or they try different nail art. There are different areas in store for massage treatment, hair styling and pedicures, as well as for clothes and jewelry.”

Working with the customer was a challenge for Tuxedo. “When people aren’t used to working with an agency and don’t understand the different phases — sketches, concepts — she’d ask ‘how is going to work?’ We had to educate her about all of the processes,” says Guez.

In order to support Le Manoir’s multipurpose business, the concept behind the floor plan was an open space layout with the welcome desk being in the centre of the space. The use of natural stone as a key texture helps elevate the brand image, something the owner wanted to achieve.

Ultimately, the material palette and the construction details generate an overall look that is classically timeless, yet is used in a very modern way. “The place had old fixtures so we had to renovate part of the store, including where there was engineered wood on the floor on top of concrete slabs,” says Guez.

In order to stay within budget, an artistic concrete floor finish was created by Marcher sur L’art, a Montreal-based commercial and residential concrete counter and floor contractor discovered by Tuxedo. With epoxy, the company can simulate different stone, marble and custom-look finishes using a technique of combining paint colours and coatings that allow volume traffic.

Since its official reopening last November, according to Tu, Le Manoir has been successful in attracting a youthful clientele to its photogenic environment and become a natural backdrop for social media users.