Larose Guyon: a New Lighting Collection Expands the Founding Designers’ Artistic Vision
November 7, 2016
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Larose Guyon, has officially launching a second collection of high-end and innovative lighting fixture, pursuing what the firm originally started last May with its La Belle Époque collection. This new line is called Le Royer.
For Larose Guyon, creating a luminaire is not just about style but about the light itself. The magic and warmth that creates the light and the shadows are, for them, as important as the object itself during the creative process. The Larose Guyon’s lighting fixtures are as attractive as the atmosphere that they create.
Based in Verchères, on the outskirts of Montreal, Larose Guyon matches the use of choice materials with formal purity to create high-end, original, distinctive items meticulously crafted down to its finest detail.
By combining both complementary visions, Larose Guyon provides simple, elegant, functional objects. Through a romantic aesthetic of luxury items, haloed in warmth and humility, they infuse daily life with poetry and beauty. These products are created, drawn and crafted objects cast in their image with the help of local artisans.
The two designers behind Larose Guyon, Audrée L. Larose and Félix Guyon, have managed to fashion their own world haloed in poetry, romance, elegance and beauty. Since the release of their first lighting collection, they have been expanding their creative approach and are now introducing seven new sculptural lighting fixtures, available online.
Both designers share their personal stories, which led to the birth of Larose Guyon through a chance encounter.
”I majored in environmental design at Université du Québec à Montréal in 2013,” says designer Audrée L. Larose. “The first steps I took gave me the opportunity to dabble in architecture and urban design to finally end up specializing in integrated objects and spaces. Through La Firme design, I could consolidate all my knowledge in high-end residential and commercial design.”
As for Félix Guyon, “I graduated in 2006 with an industrial design degree from University of Montreal. My creation is marked by my journey in the world of design and art, which led me to work from New York to London and study in France. In 2012, I founded in Verchères, right on Montreal’s doorstep, my own design studio Les Ateliers Guyon. I specialized in custom furniture design and turnkey design, and it was through this company that I had the good fortune and privilege to win many awards in several design contests. But I must admit that this project is our baby, it is made of us and by us. We must now learn to be good to it, so that it be good to others.”
The Royer collection
For this second collection, the designers wanted to create a product as elegant and distinctive as their La Belle Époque luminaires, but more versatile, products that would adapt to a wider range of purses and to customized projects.
Le Royer was inspired by the same time period as La Belle Époque — the Gilded Age — but in a whole different location. We now find ourselves in New France with coureurs de bois in the likes of notorious Pierre Le Royer, a legendary figure in French Canadian folklore.
While Caroline Otero was dancing at the Folies Bergères, Pierre Le Royer was tracking game in the wilderness of his home frontier so that European nobility could dress in the finest furs.
Although Larose Guyon’s new collection is a declension of their first, its features are as streamlined and raw as life in New France could be, with a pride in straightforwardness and sheer strength that can still be seen in the French Canadian lifestyle. All frills have given way to the purity and elegance of a stripped-down structure, leaving its essence bare for all eyes to see.
There is a poignant contrast in eras, in shapes but also in depiction. With Le Royer, we wind up in a cabin in the woods, a place where austerity reigns supreme but contrasts through its rusticity with this new collection’s elegance and straight lines. While in Europe man was eager to subjugate nature, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean people were still living under the yoke of its unforgiving forces.
These luminaires both complement aesthetically the first collection and glorifies the wild, harsh True North, with its long winter nights lit by the soft, reassuring moon gazing down at New France denizens. Their design is set up to emulate lunar phases, granting them a charm and a poetry of their own — distinctive features of any Larose Guyon creation.
Versatility
With Larose Guyon’s seven new products, it is now possible to use their creations on walls, above a kitchen island or a dining table, as a great hall chandelier, around a bathroom mirror, above a bedside table, a bathtub or a reading armchair, etc. Besides being available in different standard finishes such as matte black or white and satin copper or brass, these high-end luminaires can also be made to cater to the client’s specific needs.
A seductive design
Based in Verchères, on the outskirts of Montreal, Larose Guyon matches the use of choice materials with a great formal purity to create high-end, original, distinctive items meticulously crafted down to its finest detail.
By combining both complementary visions, Larose Guyon provides simple, elegant, functional objects. Through a romantic aesthetics of items of blatant luxury, haloed in warmth and humility, they infect daily life with poetry and beauty. As their approach is imbued with refinement and distinction, they get their inspiration from nature, art, past aeons and traditions. Branded with their love, Larose Guyon products are created, drawn and crafted objects cast in their image with the help of local artisans and their know-how.
Attending the 2016 International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York gave them an opportunity to showcase their new line of products and successfully strike a deal with London-based CTO Lighting for future distribution and representation throughout Europe, scheduled to be starting by early 2017. Until then, New Yorkers will also have a chance to admire their unique artwork at the prestigious Blackman boutique on 5th Avenue. A strong start for such a young business.
Made in Quebec
For the two designers, staying local is very important. Chiefly in a will to give work to local craftsmen, but also in the hope of being able to offer a design that people from here can be proud of, all production and assembly is 100% made in Quebec. Félix eloquently explains his vision: “We are extremely lucky to begin this adventure in an increasingly design-oriented Quebec. We can sense that people can relate more and more to design, that it’s rapidly entering everyone’s living room, year after year. Here we are working with outstanding creatives and artisans. I believe in the next decades we will be watching those specialties of ours as they sharpen and crystallize in a more accessible world. The richness we have here has to be brought to a better exploitation if we want its economy to become a spearhead for our culture on the global stage.”
For this new collection, prices vary from US$770 USD to US$6,500. Find out more: www.laroseguyon.com.
