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Antoine Proulx
multifaceted
furnishings
classic and hip case goods, lighting and seating
By Kate Yule
Mark Desplaines began his career in the fashion in-
dustry, first as a department store buyer then as the head of
retail, wholesale and public relations for fashion designer
Yohji Yamamoto in the U.S. While working for Yamamoto
in New York, Marc finally found himself living in a spa-
cious and nice enough apartment to house some respect-
able furniture. “Because I couldn’t find anything I liked in
the stores, I asked my brother if he would make me some
furniture if I sent him some drawings,” states Marc. Rich-
ard Desplaines, Marc’s brother, had already established
himself as a master furniture maker with nearly 20 years’
Mark Desplaines
Owner, Antoine Proulx
experience producing one-off furniture for architects and
designers. After completing the furnishings for Marc’s
apartment, Richard told Marc how much he enjoyed mak- be good to showcase how Antoine Proulx furniture can
ing his designs and suggested they try to sell them. Marc look and function in a setting. When he began photograph-
found a network of showrooms across the country to repre- ing the furniture in vignettes, he had to borrow lamps to
sent their line, Antoine Proulx — named for their paternal complete the look. He started designing his own lighting to
grandmother, moved to San Francisco and began his career remedy this problem intending to use them solely as props.
in the furnishings industry in earnest. The lighting received such a positive reaction from their
In San Francisco, Marc was working from his small clients that they finally added it as an additional category
apartment and rapidly running out of space. It was a boom in their line. “Now I’m obsessed with it,” he reveals. The
market in San Francisco in 2004 and he couldn’t find office chairs were also requested — Antoine Proulx’s representa-
or showroom space in which to expand. His decision to re- tives and customers have been asking for chairs to comple-
locate to Phoenix was two-fold: he already owned a home ment their dining tables for years. Marc recently added a
there and it was an untapped market for Antoine Proulx. state-of-the-art, 12,000-square-foot workshop, which gave
Once in Phoenix, many opportunities for expansion pre- him the room he needed to manufacture the chairs.
www
sented themselves and he was able to buy a building to Antoine Proulx unveiled a new unnamed collection
.designtrade.net
house the offices and showroom. this summer — a mélange of items ranging from wall-
What started as a case goods company has expanded mounted shelves and file drawers to end tables and lamps.
over the years to include lighting and now dining chairs. Marc explains, “The collection is really a lot of products
The Antoine Proulx lighting pieces were born out of neces- that complement other collections.” He actually designed
sity. At first, the case pieces were photographed as indi- the wall-mounted shelves and mobile file pedestal, which
vidual pieces, but after several years, Marc though it would complement last year’s Infinite Office Collection, for him-
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Antoine Proulx.indd 2-3 10/27/09 1:50 PM
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