French style

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Moving from France to Australia gave Virginie Fontes impetus to explore her love of French homewares. By Germaine Leece.

It’s a shop that is easy to spot: out front is an awning sheltering French striped deckchairs, rattan baskets and topiary trees that fill the footpath. Once inside, you don’t know where to look first. More rattan baskets on the floor are stacked high with French linen and cotton handbags, French sandshoes, slippers, zinc boards and striped cushions. There are huge floor cushions covered in neutral-coloured French linen, large perfumed candles, candlesticks, decorative twigs covered in glass baubles, and coat hooks with porcelain knobs.

Raising eyes to table height, it’s hard to decide which display to look at first: the black metal bistro table with its reading lamp and fabric lampshade, red and white enamel sugar canisters and glass carafes; or the hall table with its tall glass canisters, French boudoir jars and even taller glass candlesticks. Perhaps it’s the dining table that attracts instantly: the weathered grey wooden chairs; the table set with a fringed linen tablecloth, linen napkins in napkin rings with zinc tags attached for names to be written in chalk; bone-handled cutlery surrounding transparent glass plates topped with scalloped ceramic plates; glass jugs, carafes and bistro wine glasses made by the famous French crystal ware company La Rochère completing the look.

On one side of the shop a wall is lined with French toiletries: large cubes and blocks of soap wrapped in rope, bottles of bubble bath elegantly packaged, and smaller colourful guest soaps, all with beautiful scents burgeoning from each.

“People always come back to buy our soaps,” says shop owner Virginie Fontes in her lilting French accent. “The French soaps have such different fragrances. Milk and wheat is just one that is particularly beautiful and particularly French.”

Nearly 10 years ago, Virginie’s husband was offered the opportunity to transfer to his employer’s Sydney office for a couple of years. “It was so exciting to come here. I think a lot of Europeans dream about Australia – so far away, such a warm climate.”

After two years, Virginie and her husband were enjoying the Australian lifestyle so much, they decided to stay indefinitely. With a background in merchandising and interior design, she thought about setting up a business importing homewares from France, but instead was offered the chance to do merchandising work for the previous owner of Honey Bee Homewares. As luck would have it, the previous owner moved to Noosa and asked Virginie if she wanted to take over the business.

“When I began, almost four years ago, the style was very French Provincial. I’ve changed it slightly as I’m really inspired by South-West France and the Atlantic Coast, because that’s where I’m from. The style is lots of grey, treated wood, driftwood and modern but soft, pale colours. There is a big trend now towards bringing things back from the past but reproducing and integrating them into a modern look.”

Unable to find the type of products she liked here, Virginie began to time her trips home to visit family and friends with the French homewares fairs. “I started to bring back more of the trends from France, more of what I was used to. I was also inspired by the shops I would see there. My goal with the business is to have products no-one else around me has, even if it’s just a hook with a French feel. I want to bring French style to Australia.”

Virginie, her husband and their two-year-old son return to France once or twice a year. Since they have lived in Australia, she has noticed a boom in homewares stores in France. “Now every little town has a homewares shop. Even the town my husband is from has three homewares shops and there are only 500 people living there.” She finds these shops around France a motivation for her business. “The shops are beautiful:
the products they have, the way they are displayed… they are what I want to create here.”

While Virginie does a lot of buying in France, she has stopped bringing furniture back. “I always had trouble – furniture would get broken or chipped. Now I only bring rolls of fabric, decorative items and ceramics.”

Interestingly, over the past five years more and more Australian manufacturers are copying French design. Sitting in one of the weathered wooden kitchen chairs, Virginie comments that she saw this style in France a few years ago and that it’s very fashionable at the moment. Only recently had she discovered they were now being made in Australia. “It’s really good, as it means I can now do the whole French look with furniture, too.”
 
Her “whole French look” has proved popular with Honey Bee customers. “I like to introduce new products all the time, and my customers know that each month they will walk in and find something different. They get really excited.”

Virginie’s style encompasses more than just the products in the store; many customers come in simply to chat to Virginie or one of the other French women working with her. “We often talk to people about their holidays in France. One of our staff, Lydia, is a very good cook and she gives many of her French recipes to our customers. I think people just enjoy hearing our accents, too.”

Customers also benefit from hearing about the French style of entertaining and decorating one’s home. “People are really open to new ways of using products. In France we use table runners differently – we lay them across the table rather than lengthways. We call them tête à tête [‘head to head’]. If you were having a dinner for six, you would use three runners instead of placemats. You could even use one on a little bistro table instead of a tablecloth.” Virginie enjoys this aspect of being able to give customers insight into her culture.

French style doesn’t always translate to Australian homes, though, as Virginie discovered when attempting to sell eiderdowns. “In France, eiderdowns are really common: 140cm by 140cm square eiderdowns that you place on top of your bed. I always buy more when I go to France, because I love them, but every time a customer picks one up, they ask if it comes in a queen size. We explain that in France we always use eiderdowns this way, but they don’t seem convinced. We’ve sold them as throws or for single beds. Even then people are concerned they’re too short and can’t be tucked in.”

Virginie has also realised during her 10 years here that the French way of entertaining is quite different to the Australian way. “I’ve found that here people tend to go out more to restaurants, even with friends. In France we like to have dinner at home or entertain on a Sunday with a lunch, where we dress a large, long table and sit there for hours.”

Here, she and her husband have been introduced to the wonderfully casual world of the barbecue. “Friends will serve beautiful food and wine, but we won’t necessarily be sitting around a dressed table. I feel a bit ridiculous inviting them to sit down with my beautiful linen tablecloth and worry that they may think I’m a bit posh.”
 
Since having her son two years ago, Virginie has embraced this new style of entertaining. “I love picnics and casual dinners. I’m now so busy with work and my son that perhaps casual is better. However, I still like to do it properly at home. My husband and I sit down to dinner every night with a tablecloth and napkins, and my French friends and I still invite each other over for special dinners.”

A passion for decorating and homewares began years ago for Virginie. At a time when most 14-year-old girls are interested in clothes and boys, Virginie asked her mother for a subscription to Marie Claire Maison magazine for her birthday. She laughs as she recalls: “I had a friend who was just as passionate as me about homewares and we would travel into the city just to look in shop windows.”

Virginie’s passion has continued, evident in the expansion of her business beyond the store. Virginie now wholesales homeware brands from France and from Belgium. “I began buying cotton and linen handbags by these brands for the shop and they sold very well, so I decided to try wholesaling them. I also decided to expand because it’s good to have a different range to make exhibiting at trade fairs worthwhile.” Virginie has now employed an Australian woman, who was previously a freelance stylist, to help with this side of the business. “It’s been important having French people working here but it’s also great that Kate is not French. She has that connection with the English language I don’t have.”

Virginie also offers an interior decorating service. Fabric consulting is in particularly high demand. The fabric she sources in France is diverse: bold stripes, pale stripes, ticking, and linen in shades of grey, green and blue. There are even cushions made from antique French grain sacks. She buys the sacks, which are cream with a thick navy stripe and two thinner stripes on either side, for their charm and character. “They are all different and arrive in such different states.”

It is impossible for Virginie to say what her favourite product is; she loves them all. “I follow my instincts and only buy what I really like.” However, she is clear about what she loves most about her business: its atmosphere. “I always love walking into the shop because it reminds me of home.”

Virginie doubts that had they stayed in France she would have opened a homewares store. Living in Australia has allowed her to explore her passion for French style perhaps more intensely than she ever imagined. “I’ve been so lucky because circumstances brought me to do what I have always loved.”

Photography: Scott Hawkins. Styling: Lisa Hilton. Hair & make-up: David Novak-Piper.