Vol Privé, your stylish partner for traveling

Private flight , comfort during your trip with the softness of Italian merino wool, designed and manufactured in Quebec! Private flight is a collection of seven top-of-the-range items to increase your comfort while traveling: a MEDITATION mask to rest your eyes, the NUAGE and LUNA pillow , the ADVENTURE blanket , the compression stockings , the BON VOYAGE bags , as well as the CHIC travel shawl . All directed, designed and executed by a woman entrepreneur, Marie-Claude Roulier, who knows how to recognize opportunities and seize them. We had the pleasure of discussing business, passions and travels with her. A go-getter, passionate and above all ambitious woman, who has the drive to carry out her project successfully!

From aeronautics to multi-tasker

Marie-Claude Roulier dabbled in different fields, including aeronautics, for several years until the obvious came to light: " I didn't want to go back to business and my boyfriend asked me what I wanted to do. Being self-employed was the option I was considering ,” explains Marie-Claude when we discuss the beginnings of Private Flight .

She wants to collaborate with the greatest in the field and allow the Quebec industry to flourish. With the intention of creating a unique collection of high-end items for travel, Marie-Claude seeks out Quebec producers and approaches several of them. By visualizing his project, the desire to get into sewing manifests itself. The fact of having rubbed shoulders with his mother's sewing workshop in his youth became the quality inspiration for the beginnings of his travel item designs. Marie-Claude has always enjoyed creating high quality products. Combined with his love of travel, Private Flight fell on him, like a gift from heaven!

A market to develop

Marie-Claude has traveled a lot, both for business and for her personal desires, and was looking for high-end travel items that were easy to wash and created in Quebec. Few items existed on the market, which allowed this budding entrepreneur to tap into her creative side. " I wanted to do something in Quebec and travel accessories just appeared, " Marie-Claude told me. For two years, the director of Private Flight worked on her project to create a collection entirely made in Quebec. This step requires a lot of research and development to find the raw materials, recruit qualified seamstresses with skills with wool, in addition to having to test the products. Private flight officially takes off in June 2017.

High-end Quebec

From retail sales and boutique management to quantity to produce and shipping, several new acquaintances stand before this self-taught woman. She appropriates them one at a time, with an ambition and a desire to offer an experience to her customers.

Private flight develops a collection of high-end travel accessories to allow travelers to be comfortable, despite the sometimes endless hours in planes (and other means of transport). With the online store, a marketing campaign is in order. Marie-Claude participates in various fairs (Salon du design, One of a Kind ) and strategically places her products in specialized boutiques (Musée des Beaux-arts in Montreal, Boutique Signé Local, for example). Strategies to reach its target clientele, mainly retired people aged 50 and over, must be put forward. This clientele is found more in physical events than on social media. The One of a Kind event in Toronto allows him to be known by a large pool of people, since nearly 60,000 people go there.

Since it is well established in Quebec and Canada, it can now set its sights on the international scene. She develops the corporate clientele with whom she creates articles bearing their image, personalized and adapted to their needs. For example, Marriott hotels offer their customers a gift with their logo created by a local company, which allows private flight and its accessories to be known to several people.

Everyday entrepreneurship

Marie-Claude is recognized as a woman entrepreneur at the head of a private company, it is a great visibility in her community. "There is a moment when we are in business, which is pleasant: when the phone rings and a shop wants to have our products on their shelves or when a magazine (like En route) calls to try our products and talk about them . It's an interesting level of success,” the instigator of Private Flight tells me.

She is also particularly proud to see that her satisfied customers refer their friends and complete their personal collection, which is a guarantee of success in terms of product quality. "That's why I do my job. I want to help the customer by offering him a durable, beautiful and practical product” adds the designer behind the NUAGE travel pillow .

Among the successes, there are also some challenges to overcome on the way to the business world. Marie-Claude manages her business alone. She cuts everything by hand since this work is impossible to do with a laser. It's a colossal job! There are so many components that production takes a very long time. Finding seamstresses who want to work with wool and who are knowledgeable about it is also a big challenge, since this talent tends to be lost these days. It must continually adapt in order to unearth the rare pearls.

On the other hand, his multi-talented side allows him to fully understand the needs of the company. She loads the wool, visits the factories to find her raw materials, negotiates with suppliers, ensures the quality of each item that comes out of production (a strength that comes to her from her mother, who had an eye for detecting stitches weak).

Future plans and development

Of course, Marie-Claude wants to add a permanent member to her team in the production department. This would allow it to maximize its efforts in the development of the American market. Being present in Toronto (show), in store in Vancouver and in Quebec, the opening towards our neighbors to the South stands as a great challenge. Again, she'll have to research each potential state's upholstery permits, find shops, etc. She aims to attend a show in New York in 2020 and sign with an airline to offer Private Flight items to business class. A seduction campaign is currently being put forward to promote its products to a Canadian airline.

This female entrepreneur has the wind in her sails and wants to continue to allow travelers to be comfortable in style. I invite you to visit the Signé Local store to touch the products, try them and adopt them!

Well we travel!

Reviewed by Marie-Pascale