Booming Quebec company Womance, now with sales in excess of $5 million, will soon have a new address in Montreal.
Line founder and former Occupation Double winner Andréanne Marquis now feels ready for the big city adventure, she laughs.
The opening is planned for next autumn, the location has not yet been decided.
Thanks to online voting, the customers themselves decide on the location of the new address.
Strong demand
The 32-year-old designer says that the brand, which is well-known in Quebec, has long been in demand at the other end of Highway 20.
“The demand in Montreal has been there since day 1,” she says. “I wanted to do my classes,” says the one who has run her business primarily online since it was founded in 2015.
She also learned in the Womance store in the Galeries de la Capitale, which opened in November 2021.
“It is certain that you will never be able to match in-store the number of sales you can make in an hour online. But that’s not the goal. It’s for customers who don’t buy online,” explains the young woman from L’Isle-Verte, who grew up in Quebec.
The Galeries boutique will close its doors at the end of the month to make way for the Womance warehouse on John Simons Street.
Unforeseen career
After her stint in reality TV, the young businesswoman worked as a political attaché to former education minister Yves Bolduc before founding her company.
She never imagined that one day she would own a clothing brand.
“That’s because the girls on social media kept asking me where I got my laundry from. But they wouldn’t have asked me if I hadn’t done an OD,” she explains. From this enthusiasm Womance was born.
Correct sizes
Her creations are inspired by her own wishes and needs.
She also takes care of offering fair and “regular” sizing, ranging from very very small to 3XL.
“I’m 5ft 4 and 120lbs and sometimes I have to buy medium to get it. Sometimes I think I’m very small and my calf doesn’t even fit in my pants. I told myself I didn’t want to feel like that anymore, or for a woman to feel like that,” she says.
lipstick and masks
With the wind in her sails, Andréanne Marquis also launched her own vegan cosmetics line Sans-Façon just over a year ago. The products are available in about twenty Familiprix pharmacies in Quebec. Discussions are also ongoing with other banners.
The young entrepreneur can be proud of having followed her instincts in her young career.
“I was told [avant le lancement de ses deux entreprises] the market was saturated. The day we launched our cosmetics brand, we received emails from the largest pharmacy banners in Quebec,” she says.
Today, her guiding principle in everything she undertakes is “to create products that the customer deserves at the level of what they pay for”.
woman
- A turnover of more than 5 M$
- A boutique and warehouse of more than 18,000 square meters
- More than 8 million page views annually
- 34 employees
- Soon a new address in Montreal
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