FASHION DESIGNER Mary Gregory has a hand in the handsome new shops springing up around the country under the banner of Maison Château. "Our furniture is contemporary with a soft edge," says Derek Kehoe whose four shops - in Dublin, Cork, Tipperary and Waterford - are elegant and relaxed, and worthy of a visit, writes Emma Cullinan
Kehoe is the Irish agent for Environment Furniture, a chunky range made from recycled Brazilian wood and whose sofas are covered in recycled truck canvas. Two years ago, he opened a shop in Glanworth Mill in Cork which, sitting before a Norman castle, inspired the name Maison Château. And that is the moniker carried by the latest store, at Dove Hill in Tipperary.
"I was attracted to the mill [at Glanworth] because I wanted my store to be unusual. My range of furniture wouldn't work in a retail park," he says. The mill was a B+B with 15 bedrooms upstairs which Kehoe knocked into five larger rooms. There are also three rooms downstairs, one of which houses the mill workings that Kehoe plans to get going to generate electricity.
When he was working on the Tipperary shop, which opened two weeks ago, he crossed paths with Mary Gregory who was taking a sabbatical from fashion to do up her Georgian home and spend more time with her children. "Her style and thoughts about natural materials fitted with my vision," says Kehoe. He had already chosen the polished eco-concrete floor, and some of the fittings, but he wanted Gregory to design the rest and gather the furniture and accessories.
"I don't like it when I walk into a store and see a sea of furniture," Gregory admits. Thus her room sets are divided by dramatic lengths of see-through, swaying fabric hanging from the soaring ceiling. Light filters through the material to give a sense of the whole space even though it is partitioned. Art exhibitions are another way to expand the use of the space, she says.
At Dove Hill and Glanworth Mill, the walls are painted in pale and powdery Farrow Ball colours, which lend a sort of Nordic naturals look. From such ethereal aesthetics, a solid retail concept has been woven.