The story of Les Belles Combines
01 November, 2019
It was 2015, and I had just given birth to Simone, my first daughter! I received a pink, sparkly diaper cover as a baby gift, with the words “I can’t stop talking on my cellphone” written on it. It was, in a way, everything I didn't like: pink and sparkles, English writing, and the nod to cellphone addiction! It was the era when Quebec children's fashion was taking off, the time when companies like Alice et Simone or Blacksnaps were breaking into the market. Black and white and unisex clothing were all the rage.
So I started designing T-shirts that I would have liked my kids to wear: meaningful messages, icons of Québec culture and grammar rules. I pictured my children proudly wearing Louis Cyr, or the plural rule “Hiboux, choux, genoux” (owls, cabbages, knees). One fine morning, I shared my idea with my big sister, a graphic designer. She liked it, and we dove into a creative adventure just for fun. But since our respective temperaments didn't allow us to do things halfway, we went all out: a pre-launch Facebook page, a website, an original photo shoot, etc. So by the time the first collection launched, we already had two points of sale. The day after the launch, an article appeared in La Presse+ and another on the Huffington Post.
Our clothes were selling incredibly well, our Facebook page was welcoming more and more followers, and we were living our first entrepreneurial adventure! With life pushing me to go all in on this business, I wanted to commercialize all the tools I had put in place at home for my brood: an anger box to calm my oldest's big emotions, a positive reinforcement system to motivate my second, and a family planner for me to better manage my mental load. So we launched a collection of educational tools to make families' lives easier, and that's when the fun began! For me, it was the dream job: living my family life and turning everything that happened in my daily life into content or products!
It was around then that Marie arrived, my second daughter and fourth in the lineup. Lovely Marie clearly developed her ability to adapt. Marie followed me everywhere, to every market and show. I remember Marie napping in T-shirt boxes under our booth table at Puces Pop or at Marché Nënë! She followed me everywhere! One thing leading to another, we created a thousand and one tools to make your life easier, and now thousands of families use them. More than 60,000 families follow us on social media! It's crazy, and it's so much more than we could ever have imagined!
In the coming years, Les Belles Combines has 1,001 major projects! I'm currently working on offering you content that will let you manage your family life with plenty of zen! For the years ahead, I'll be that friend, that big sister with years of experience under her belt, that go-to person who selects and reads all the most relevant books on the subject for you, but who can also turn that precious information into 1,001 creative, fun and super-practical tricks. I promise to make your daily life light and fun and, above all, to help you feel valued in your role as a parent, keeping you from turning into a mom at the end of her rope!
Follow us on social media so you don't miss anything, because the coming years will be rich in content, believe me!
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Get the whole family organized with Octave
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