Our story

See how our company, founded 35 years ago, has become a family business over time. Pictured here: Geneviève Dostaler seated (right) at her booth during her very first Montreal Craft Fair in 1977.

Geneviève Dostaler is a company that was founded in Montreal in the 1970s. Geneviève Dostaler, its creator, studied design at the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris towards the end of the sixties. It is from this experience that she draws her sense of color and her love of fabrics.

Returning to Montreal in the mid-seventies, she decided to focus her artistic work first on children's clothing and then on fashion accessories. She entered the Montreal Craft Fair for the first time in 1977.

  • Geneviève's student card

Over the decades, Geneviève has participated in prestigious trade shows in Canada, the United States, and Europe. She enjoyed considerable success with her children's hats and accessories in the 1990s. The harshness of our winter climate has always inspired her to create numerous hat and scarf designs that protect, warm, and enhance the face.

  • Geneviève at her studio in the 1990s

  • A hair accessory designed by Geneviève Dostaler

  • Olivier, as a child, wearing a Geneviève Dostaler headband

  • Geneviève during the preparation of a trade fair

Over the years, Geneviève has passed on her expertise and passion for millinery to her son, Olivier Dostaler, who joined the company more than ten years ago. Demonstrating a remarkable aptitude for marketing and sales, Olivier has proven to be the ideal person to take over and grow the business.

Olivier and Geneviève are delighted to meet their clients again at the various trade shows in which the family business participates year after year.

  • Geneviève during preparations for a trade fair in London, 1995

  • 29 years later, Geneviève and her son in front of their dealership at La Baie downtown Montreal.