Workshop-shop mūz manufactures | The decor like nowhere else

In front of the door of the new mūz workshop-boutique, avenue Atateken, music invites strollers to cross the threshold. That’s what we do, intrigued, after a furtive glance at the window. The place is narrow, filled with eclectic objects: a slightly eccentric mix that exudes joie de vivre and humour. The whole testifies, obviously, to a vision of design that refuses to take itself seriously…

Isabelle Morin
The Press

We are at the heart of the whimsical haunt of designer and visual artist Nathalie Collet. Lively, dapper, the designer presents her treasures with renewed enthusiasm with each object. Here, stuffed animals from Sweden rub shoulders with ceramic vulvas. On the wall, animals in ruffles are displayed on trays in an offbeat “Bridgerton” style.

The strange fauna stares at the visitor, unless it’s the fine china, the handmade soaps or the deliciously kitsch bathing caps that the owner has brought from Athens.

In this eclectic lair, styles and eras cohabit — objects with various uses and prices, each of which has its own little story.

“When I come across an item that you don’t see in everyone’s home, I feel like I’ve made a discovery,” she says with obvious satisfaction. If it’s too represented in Montreal, I don’t do it. »

It was by seeing her sets and the particular atmosphere that emanated from them that those around her encouraged her to explore this path. Thus began to mature the idea of ​​a warm workshop-boutique that could bring together, in one place, a range of objects to offer or to offer as gifts: a long-standing dream for the one who liked, small , to play the merchant.

Nathalie Collet has not always given free rein to her artistic approach. As a “little girl from the mountains”, she says of her childhood in a village in the Alps, this design came to life in another stratosphere. “It was a very long time before I accepted that I was an artist. » After studies in marketing and a career in the voice offshe dares.

Mūz is his playground and the fruit of his peregrinations in flea markets, on the web or while traveling. It is there, too, that she mixes her talent with that of local craftsmen. “My mother has put everything she likes here and I like everything she offers,” says one of her four daughters, Coco, who joined this “mūzéal” adventure in the spring. At the back of the premises, in a small workshop, mother and daughter explore their artistic flair, the first in creations in recycled materials and the second in a pop art style.

Most of the lights presented in the store are made by Nathalie Collet. There are also a few pieces of furniture. The artist creates with what ignites a spark within her, and which can just as well be a truck shock absorber, a metal barrel, paper pulp, an exhaust pipe or fake fur. These recovered materials are reincarnated under his hand in canvases, poufs, side tables or colossal suspensions.

Nathalie Collet works these days with pulp on canvas. “I take it and then, without thinking, I put it down. It’s a total abstraction of the mind and of what I was able to learn artistically,” she describes while manipulating the material. The exercise gives birth to childish characters noticed by the jury of the fair Together We Art, which will be presented in New York this fall. “I never could have imagined that it would end up being exhibited in a prestigious place,” she notes, thrilled.

Above all, the designer describes herself as a creator and one of those who see beauty everywhere… Even in a car spring that continues its existence in an unusual way once transformed into a bedside table. “Creativity has never left me. To a problem, there is always a solution. And in the end, it’s good! »