The Origins of Maison Grocaut 

Amandine Grocaut was born in France. She arrived in Canada in late December 2012, right after the biggest snow storm since the 70s. When she started looking for a winter coat both warm and elegant to replace her french jackets that were no longer adapted to the Montréal climate, way harsher than in France, she was very disappointed to witness that there was no option available that combiend comfort, a chic silhouette and materials respectful of the environment. Everything she found was either made out of synthetic fabrics or displaying sportswear fits that offended her taste for aesthetics.

Thanks to her experience as a student in a French Fine Arts school and her creative genius that had already allowed her to realize a few custom-made costume orders in her birth country, she came up with a personal mission to build her own experience as a professional seamstress to create a personal wardrobe that would fit her needs for comfot and style.

That's how she spent almost 10 years working on her assembling skills thanks to jobs with companies creating ready-to-wear collections, stage costumes and shoes, as well as independants creators to learn the techniques that help her today to create clothing items with impeccable fit and exceptional comfort. During that time, she was on the front row to witness the unbelievable amount of materials derived from the oil industry that were used in the cretion process, and seeing firsthand the gigantic quantity of waste ending up in trash were driving her sick. That's why she started to collect all the fabric leftovers she could to reuse them in personal creations.

Amandine thus started to refine her skills on pieces that were missing in her own wardrobe to make up for the lack of options that were matching her needs in stores, items such as skirts, dress shirts or dresses easy to put on, really convenient and practical thanks to numerous pockets put at strategic places and an elegant design. She first used recycled materials before turning to first choice natural materials to satisfy her taste for excellence and sustainability.

She soon began to get herself noticed for her outfits displaying feminine yet casual looks by receiving comments saying she looked as if she was feeling really comfortable in her clothes, and she began to think that creating her own company could be a good opportunity to solve this problem that seemed to be coming back really often in conversations : how frustrated people were to not find clothes that were as comfortable and practical as respectful of the environment while not looking as «potato bags».