The Story of Les Belles Combines
01 November, 2019
It was 2015, I had just given birth to Simone, my first daughter! As a birth gift, I received a pink, glittery onesie with "I can't stop talking on my cellphone" written on it. It was everything I disliked: pink and glitter, English text, and the allusion to cell phone addiction! This was during the era when Quebec children's fashion was taking off, a 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 loved my children to wear: meaningful messages, Quebec cultural icons, and grammar rules. I imagined my children proudly wearing Louis Cyr or the "Hiboux, choux, genoux" rule. One morning, I shared my idea with my older sister, a graphic designer. She liked the idea, and we embarked on a creative journey, just for fun. But since our respective temperaments didn't allow us to do things by halves, we went all out: pre-launch Facebook page, website, original photo shoot, etc. Thus, at the time of the first collection's launch, 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 sold incredibly well, our Facebook page welcomed more and more subscribers, and we were experiencing our first entrepreneurial adventure! Life pushing me to fully commit to this venture, I wanted to commercialize all the tools I had set up at home for my children: a "anger box" to calm the big emotions of the oldest, a positive reinforcement system to motivate the second, and a family planner for myself to better manage my mental load. So we launched a collection of educational tools to make family life easier, and that's where the fun began! For me, it was the dream job: living my family life and commercializing everything that happened in my daily life in the form of content or products!
It was at this time that Marie, my second daughter, the fourth in line, arrived. Beautiful Marie, she clearly developed her adaptability. Marie followed me everywhere, to all markets and shows. I remember Marie sleeping in t-shirt boxes under our booth table at Puces Pop or Marché Nënë! She followed me everywhere! Little by little, 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 so much more than we could have ever imagined!
In the coming years, Les Belles Combines has 1001 major projects! I am currently working on offering you content that will allow you to manage your family life with a lot of serenity! For the years to come, I will be that friend, that big sister with years of experience under her belt, that resource person who selects and reads all the most relevant books on the subject for you, but who also has the ability to transform this precious information into 1001 creative, fun, and practical tips. I promise to make your daily life light, fun, and above all, to help you value yourself in your role as a parent, preventing you from becoming an "exhausted mom"!
Follow us on social media so you don't miss anything because the coming years will be rich in content, believe me!