Accueil - From La main Gauche to Gaucherie
As in all good stories, from La Main Gauche to Gaucherie, it’s all about a meeting, a strange idea that germinates and takes shape, an alignment of planets perhaps, no doubt provoked.
How many times have I heard this phrase since I started talking about opening a store for left-handed people? And it’s obviously not coming from left-handed people themselves, though, but from right-handed people who often reply: “I don’t really understand the problem with left-handed people: I’m normal…”. Admittedly, we’re not handicapped, even if we might wonder what “normal” is, but we do have specific needs, especially when it comes to supplies and tools, and I think it’s nice to finally find something to suit our needs.
First comes the desire to change one’s life. Then came the problem: how do you open a tin can when you’re left-handed? Looking for solutions and thinking that maybe the solution is to do it yourself (I’m left-handed and so is my offspring). Anyway, here’s the idea: open a can, but not just any can. A store for left-handed people. Like all good future entrepreneurs, I did some market research and analyzed my competitors. www.lamaingauche.com has been around since the late 1980s. Monsieur D. is looking for a buyer…
Before becoming www.lamaingauche.com, La Main Gauche was created within a garden center in 1987. The designer at the time had the same problem as me: how to help left-handed people (in this case, gardeners, no doubt)? So she set up her left-handed store within the garden center. In 2000, she sold her business to Mr. D., who thought there was something to be done with mail order. He himself is right-handed, but is interested in the cause. At the time, there were just a few of them, scattered all over France, including Le Gaucher, a specialized Parisian left-handed guitar maker, and above all the flagship boutique in London.
With the development of the Internet, Lamaingauche.com was born. No need for a paper catalog, everything is on the web. Customers more or less got used to these new practices (I still get a few phone calls from people telling me they don’t have Internet access and would like a small catalog – so I don’t know how they managed to reach me, since my contact details are only… on the Web :)).
One day, when all this has gained enough momentum, maybe I’ll open a physical boutique. As my friend Claude would say: “There will be stores in New York, Kyoto, Rio, Oslo and Marseille! For the moment, I only sell online, and I’m working on turning lamaingauche into Gaucherie, a boutique for left-handed people that’s a little more me, that I’d like to feel at home in. I asked Julien de www.supermarchenoir.fr to work on my graphic identity. Julien is a typographer and graphic designer, but he’s also a glass letterer (and left-handed, which doesn’t hurt!). He created the image of Gaucherie in its entirety, like a real physical boutique.
The beginnings won’t be perfect. There are bound to be hitches. Missing references, late suppliers, lost mail… But this site is destined to evolve, over time, with you, dear customers. Whether you’re right-handed, left-handed, ambidextrous, frustrated or dyslexic, here you’re “normal”. Don’t hesitate to share your needs and desires with us, and long live Gaucherie!