New Boutique Offers French Style To Pointers

Given their rich history as an 18th-century French settlement, the Grosse Pointes have surprisingly little to offer Francophiles who set out to do a little shopping. That will change today with the opening of Voilà, a boutique offering French and French-inspired furniture, clothing and accessories.

The new Grosse Pointe Farms store is the brainchild of French sisters Carole Philippe Davis and Pascale Forster, who hail from France’s northwest region of Brittany. Forster, who has a penchant for interior design, came to Grosse Pointe 20 years ago and has worked ever since at the Birmingham home design store La Belle Provence. Davis, who has lived in Grosse Pointe for eight years, began designing clothing out of her home four years ago for a growing word-of-mouth clientele.

Comfortable, natural and unique are words the sisters use to describe Voilà’s merchandise. Home décor items include handmade throw pillows and urban, minimalist furniture made from leather, wood and metal. Personal attire includes an array of accessories (scarves, belts, bags and jewelry) in addition to more than a dozen French lines of ready-to-wear clothing and Davis’ own designs, which she creates under the name ZigZag.

Voilà’s clothes—and those by Davis, in particular—are at once whimsical and edgy, with deconstructionist elements, such as prominent stitching, seams and asymmetry.  There is also heavy use of stenciled and freehand words exhorting shoppers to do such things as “penser vert,” French for think green, “voyage,” French for travel and even say “merci.” The shape of a garment, and the way it works or does not work on the body of individual customers, is extremely important to Davis, who does not use patterns when designing and downplays the sizing system of commercial clothing.

“It’s not ‘size’ that fits your body, it’s the clothes,” she stressed. That said, don’t look for any extra-small items at Voilà. Davis doesn’t bother importing them, she said, because French sizes run so small that almost no Americans can fit in them.

Davis and Forster prefer natural textiles such as cotton, linen and wool and whenever possible select items made from PVC-free plastic and other green materials. Roughly 70% of the store’s inventory comes directly from France, according to Davis, while the remainder comprises items from Canada and the U.S.

On Thursday night, the sisters invited an intimate group of family and friends to the boutique for some pre-opening shopping. Among those who came were Julie Lamb of Grosse Pointe City and Susan Miller of Grosse Pointe Park, both of whom have bought Davis’ ZigZag creations. Lamb described them as “unique, easy to wear and one of a kind” while Miller extolled their versatility, saying they can be worn by “people of any age.”

These are precisely the qualities on which Davis and Forster are capitalizing, because they realize the folly of going head-to-head with major clothing chains.

“You’ll never see traditional black pants or jeans here,” Davis said. “We can’t compete with Talbots or the Gap. If you’re not different, people won’t come, and you need to be different by your style and your ambiance.”

Located at 18226 Mack Ave. in Grosse Pointe Farms, Voilà is open Monday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Clothing from Voilà will be featured at the April 12 hosted by the Mother’s Club of .