Back in 2017, two little French women decided to leave their full-time jobs in Toronto to start what had been a dream for many years: open their own boudoir photography business. Filled with ambition and willpower, they've given it everything and have built the small empire brick by brick, hoping to, one day, reach their next dream: having their own studio.
Now in 2024, we are very proud to say that we have finally started this adventure and now have our home away from home.
What were we doing before?
You are not without knowing that the renting market in Toronto is getting worse every day. Back in 2017, it was already the case and definitely out of reach for a sprouting business. Since we couldn’t afford our space, we were just renting multiple ones on a shoot by shoot basis.
We are not going to lie, it was pretty neat and we are keeping this option available to us even now. It's been a great way for us to keep our creativity up high, to adapt to our clients’ vision and just enjoy somebody else's place.
But after 7 years of business and 11 in Canada, we grew tired of not finding our own vibe.
Combining missing home and our new adventure
It took us a good 6 months to gather the courage to venture in the commercial rental world. Having the same business model for so long made us feel comfortable and safe but also… bored. During the summer of 2023, it was pretty clear both of us had lost our spark and we needed to find it again.
Funny enough, we had some rough ideas of the layout of the studio we initially wanted: open concept, bricks and beams, industrial… But when we actually visited the one we are in now, a completely different vision just manifested itself. Scrap it all, we are going to create multiple rooms with a strong, authentic, Parisian aesthetic. And we made it happen.
If you don't know it already, we are both originally from France. While we love the life we’ve built in Canada for the past decade, we were getting to a point where our homesick episodes were sneakily showing up more often than not. We'd been missing our roots and its aesthetics for a while and having this space to remind us of home has been a blast so far.
Creating your own space VS renting different ones
Yes, we have only had our space for only a few months, but already, the perks we have noticed are pretty amazing.
1) The freedom to transform the space the way we want to.
We have created 3 different rooms and 3 different vibes, and we didn't have to depend on somebody else's vision.
2) Nobody is living in it, so it is fully adapted for creators.
The majority spaces we used to rent were real people's lofts, so naturally, they have their lives in it and plenty of not-so-pretty things, like every living space has.
3) No more worrying about finding the right place at the right time.
It was always quite a stressful aspect of our job: our clients have a limited schedule and lofts get booked often. As if this wasn't challenging enough, we've also had a couple of nightmare situations when the landlords “forgot” we were coming and ghosted us when we were at the door with our clients.
4) We can make a mess!
We didn't expect this to be such a perk, but before, we obviously had to put the place back exactly the way we found it, so we were juggling between shooting and cleaning up as we went. On our space, we have all the time in the world to put it back together afterwards, which allowed us to extend our time with our beloved clients.
5) We can rent it out to other creators
This is a freshly new endeavour we’ve taken: our beautiful apartment is available to rent by the hour for any type of creators! It's so cool to be able to give what we were given for so long.
What about the downsides?
With every new adventure comes some uncomfortable feelings and not-so-fun aspects. Fortunately, we only see a few downsides compared to our previous ways.
1) The rent.
Of course, we now have an official extra rent on top of our personal ones and let me tell you, that's a good pressure on our shoulders. It's not just about sustaining ourselves anymore and it's the first time we've had to deal with this. To make a business grow, you have to take some risks, but it doesn't stop the fear it brings.
2) The possibility of getting bored…?
Being used to shoot in different spaces, we considered before taking on this project that, maybe, we would get tired of our space. Now, of course it is too soon to tell, but even so, we feel it will be very easy to counter, as we have the freedom to do whatever the hell we want.
Hopefully it stays this way (and hopefully we can pay rent ha!). We are very excited to share more with you about this beautiful space and how our vision came to be. Stay tuned…