Clémande Burgevin-Blachman, former vice-president of design at Calvin Klein Home, fits every stereotype of a French designer, minus any hint of snobbery. She has high cheekbones and is impeccable in a crisp white blouse, cinched tight at the waist, skinny white jeans and camel heels. Her Parisian accent sounds particularly exotic in the show suite for Westbank’s Oakridge development, where she is touring media through a display of her artfully curated studio apartments, soon for sale.
The apartments will come fully furnished with bed linens, towels, a Danish-inspired electric kettle with wooden handle, tableware, vases, a pair of housecoats (one brown, one mauve), flip flops and matching toothbrushes that Ms. Burgevin-Blachman notes are both functional and beautiful. I start to judge my own belongings — the perma-stained coffee carafe we hide away when company comes, and my ratty white terry-towel bathrobe, its cuffs permanently blackened with newsprint. These apartments are artfully staged with sparkling belongings you can keep. They are meant to be move-in ready, so a new homeowner, fatigued after the big move day, doesn’t have to root around in boxes to find the coffee maker.
There is even a shelf full of books curated by Charlotte Taschen, of the German publishing house Taschen, whom I had never heard of but Google tells me is Europe’s best-known purveyor of books on art and culture. Among them is a substantial travel book collection to destinations such as Berlin, London, Rome and New York; places where people who want to buy an apartment with preselected books oozing culture would aspire to visit.
Just who those buyers will be is a bit up in the air at the moment. Ms. Burgevin-Blachman says the studio apartments, which are designed with murphy beds, are geared to first-time buyers or people from out of town seeking a Vancouver pied-à-terre. This, no doubt, will be cause for a round of Twitter chatter aimed at Westbank-owner Ian Gillespie, who is often painted as Public Enemy Number One for selling to investors and “commodifying” real estate. Of course, others have been just as happy to sell to whoever will buy, they’ve just been quieter about it. Mr. Gillespie unabashedly markets his high-end condominium developments abroad; there is an Oakridge marketing billboard at the base of Hong Kong’s Victoria Peak tram.
And these studio suites with all their amenities seem perfectly suited for the international jet set with cash to blow on a Vancouver vacation pad. They are supplied with just enough tasteful furnishings to sustain a short visit. But with empty homes and foreign buyer taxes now in place, it’s hard to say how much uptake there will be in that market segment.
There may, however, turn out to be a local demand for this type of sales inducement. In the past, condominium purchasers have been lured with offers of free kayaks, wine and, most recently, avocado toast. So, why not an apartment tastefully furnished by Ms. Burgevin-Blachman, a design star who has also consulted for Chanel and Berluti? As she talks about the various inspirations for her designs, it’s hard not to get enthusiastic. She chose items with clean, simple lines, things she personally loves, such as the teacups with their high arched handle, so easy to drink from.
I start to imagine what it would be like to start over. Ditch my housecoat, lose the carpet the dog barfed on and the cushion the other dog chewed. I could surround myself with true objects of beauty, colours that match. I’m now wracking my brain for things that could stay. Hmm. The chefs’ knives, perhaps?
But with all this purging, would I still be me? Ms. Burgevin-Blachman assures me that yes, I would. The offerings in the apartment are meant as a gift, not a prescription, she says: “It’s your home not mine.”
And no one’s home is a show piece day to day, she continues. “But the beautiful kettle, even in a mess, is still a beautiful kettle.”
I leave the showroom and the spell breaks. I’m staying put, free from the shackles of all self-appointed arbiters of high culture. I will continue to choose my own books, and watch from afar to see how Mr. Gillespie’s newest sales-pitch works out.