Not everyone gets stuck sitting next to a shoe-removing, snoring John (or Joan) Candy when taking a flight. Ten years ago, Catherine Brown, a native of Texas, and Steve Granville, a native of Maryland, sat next to each other on a cross-country flight to San Francisco, struck up a conversation and soon after married. The rest is maternity fashion history. Together they founded Fleurville, a fashion – forward – yet – functional diaper bag company based in San Rafael, which sells their designs in more than 1,000 stores in the United States as well as Europe, Japan and Australia. The will soon add furniture to their roster in a partnership with Yves Behar of Fuse Project. Today they live in Forest Knolls with their two children and have just celebrated six years of being in business together. Here’s how they make it work.
Who’s the boss? We share responsibilities. Catherine is the design lead and runs production and finance. Steve leads branding, sales and marketing.
Could you give a few tips for other couples thinking about working together? Devote time to working on your communication skills. We can’t overemphasize enough the importance of developing these skills.
How did you meet up with Yves Behar? We have admired Yves’ work for a couple of years and approached Fuse Project when we had the idea for a groundbreaking high chair. It turns out that an old colleague of Steve’s was Yves’s business partner.
How did you choose to support the Canal Alliance’s Compañeras program as a benefactor? We feel that, locally, the Latino immigrant community is most visibly in need of support and resources. Being parents ourselves, we really empathized with the difficulty of rearing children without the support of extended family and wanted to help these women in need.
What are your bags made of? Our bags are typically made of nylon, polyurethane and recycled plastic bottles. It’s important that we don’t use PVC. It was difficult and expensive to
develop Green-LAM™, our PVC-substitute laminate. We felt it was important enough to do it.
How and when did you decide to be PVC-free? Many other companies use PVC because it’s cheap. It is the only major plastic that contains chlorine, so it is unique in the hazards it creates. PVC production fuses vinyl chloride molecules with toxic metals such as lead and cadmium, which are added as plasticizers and stabilizers. Because of the chemical properties of chlorine, the by-products of PVC production tend to be far more toxic, more persistent in the environment, and more likely to build up in the food supply and the bodies of people than otherwise similar chemicals that do not contain chlorine. We wanted a fabric treatment that worked as well as PVC, without the drawbacks. It does cost more, but it is the correct thing to do. It took us almost two years to develop Green-LAM.
When did Green-LAM hit the market? About three years ago. Anytime you see clear treatment on a Fleurville fabric, it is Green-LAM. Green-LAM is an environmentally friendly laminate like no other on the market. Fleurville Green-LAM products are created with an innovative and earth-conscious polyurethane laminate application with superior benefits that include moisture repellency, UV resistance and an unparalleled overall durability.
What is Re-Run™? Re-Run is a Fleurville fabric made out of recycled plastic bottles. Rather than throwing out bottles, the fabric mill melts them and extrudes the melted bottles into thread. The thread is then woven into our Re-Run fabric. We make products out of the fabric. Every product in the collection keeps between three and 10 plastic bottles out of the landfill.
Do you have any hobbies to keep you sane? Catherine practices yoga and studies alternative medicine, while I surf.
Where do have lunch near your headquarters on Lindaro Street? We actually go one street west to B Street, to the Panama Hotel. The tortilla soup is world class!
Mimi Towle has been the editor of Marin Magazine for over a decade. She lived with her family in Sycamore Park and Strawberry and thoroughly enjoyed raising two daughters in the mayhem of Marin’s youth sports; soccer, swim, volleyball, ballet, hip hop, gymnastics and many many hours spent at Miwok Stables. Her community involvements include volunteering at her daughter’s schools, coaching soccer and volleyball (glorified snack mom), being on the board of both Richardson Bay Audubon Center. Currently residing on a floating home in Sausalito, she enjoys all water activity, including learning how to steer a 6-person canoe for the Tamalpais Outrigger Canoe Club. Born and raised in Hawaii, her fondness for the islands has on occasion made its way into the pages of the magazine.
