Editions de Robes closes the door

EDitions de Robes, a 100% blue basket company with some of our most historic moments, will close its doors on Saturday. The epidemic and the subsequent questions of Kovid-19 have further improved its business model.

Isabel Dubey
The press

Edison de Robes marked the historic victory of the first mayor of Montreal and extended the meeting between Canada’s First Lady and Duchess Kate Middleton. The idea of ​​a blue basket, with a low environmental footprint, wants to help women break the glass ceiling.

“I see the dress as a shield to help professional women fight in their day-to-day struggles,” explains passionately designer and owner Julie Pesant, who has gradually gained her self-confidence, pointing to growing up as a mother. Home.

“I’m the one who struggles in life, he continues during an interview The press. I never gave up, but I did not want to give up. In business you have to be realistic. I’m trying to keep this off with grace, because I haven’t mismanaged my business. A

Foremost in 2012

After working for Jacob for 20 years and for 10 years in San Francisco, companies where clothing was made locally, but especially in Asia, Julie Pesant wanted to turn things around. “China has become the world’s factory,” he observed. I wanted to make everything in Montreal and make the products sustainable, because I told myself that I was going to serve professional and intelligent women clients who want to be served intelligently. A

The only difference, he says, is the fabric imported from Spain and Italy, because Quebec has no weavers. So it’s in materials that resist time and enlarge all sorts of silhouettes that the garments were made at the Montreal Workshop.

Galas and cocktail party

Over the past ten years, impeccable line of outfits have accompanied the careers of CEOs Manon Bruilet and Isabel Hooden, but also many lawyers, judges, women of money, actresses and artists. Professional dresses who have added galas and cocktail party.

In 2019, Editions de Robes created about forty styles per season and sold 150 dresses per style, even up to 175 for Leila dresses.

A slow death

However, due to the epidemic, office closures, the city center desolation, teleworking and the tendency to relax gave him a hard time. When the stores first reopened in 2020, there were no rows outside the store. Not for the second time.

“For two years, I kept developing so that it was always more beautiful and always more attractive. We couldn’t estimate how long it would last.”

Julie Pesant and her team have improved the website, added jackets, pants, created a new Parada collection by Floor Amelia Telefer-Perez, who has worked with Julie Pesant since 2012. But this effort and this passion did not translate into statistics: sales declined. By 50 to 60%.

“It was a slow death. The elastic stretches, he depicts. I’m drawing my personal wealth. The financial statements are catastrophic.”

The question of how to swallow

Saturday, passage time The press, Customers not only come and follow each other to enjoy the last days of the store, but also show their affection. “What am I going to do without you?” One shouted. “Where can I find quality clothes for my figure? Another said. A recognition that has taken the designer away.

If the store and website officially and permanently close at 5pm on Saturday, June 11, projects are slowly taking shape.

He cannot talk about made-to-measure, special orders and other proposals. “I will appear differently again. In my mind, the word leisure has no meaning. I have always seen myself as an artist, like Renoir who painted to the end of his life. A