Les Branchés Lunetterie, Saint-Jérôme, QC

“Les Branchés” all began from a wonderful love story between opera singer Anne-Marie Faniel and Patrick Bolduc, optician. Passionate about their respective talents and completely in love with one another, they decided to share every aspect of their lives and join their talents to accomplish great things. Quite anxious to live their lives to the fullest, they swore to fulfill both of their life-long dreams, starting with Patrick’s. And that’s how “Les Branchés” began, his very own optical store!
Anne-Marie, artistic person with a bubbly and energetic personality, thus created a unique process to transform “Les Branchés” into a completely out of the ordinary store: Facial stylism. Having been a makeup artist and hairdresser in the past for TV sets and magazines while studying at Montréal’s Music Conservatory, Anne-Marie decided to put her knowledge of the human face to use and reinvent the field of eyeglass selling. The lovebirds noticed how profits made in this domain were overinflated and chose to sell frames and high quality lenses at a reasonable price!
And that’s how it all started! In the beginning the couple did not work out of a specific location, but instead they would travel from house to house with their products. They also had an important clientele with employees from Radio-Canada and the Casino of Montréal.
With time their success grew, and in 2005 they opened the first “Branchés” store on Saint-Georges Street in Saint-Jérôme. It wasn’t long before customers from all over the province arrived at their doorstep looking for original frames at a reasonable price. And thanks to Anne-Marie’s facial stylism, it was as if the glasses were basically hand-picked for the client.
In 2008 began yet another great adventure for the couple, with the founding of Faniel Eyewear, a line of artistic frames designed by none other than Anne-Marie Faniel. Her frames are now sold worldwide.