A Legacy of Design and Family
Marie-Eve Baril knows the faucet game intimately. Her parents launched Montreal-based Baril 40 years ago after her mother became frustrated with the lack of beautiful faucets for the home. What began as an import business for high-end Italian faucets has grown into a North American design name, still rooted in family and aesthetics.
Today, Baril designs its faucets in Montreal and assembles them at its manufacturing facility in Trois-Rivières, Quebec. Products are now sold across North America. Since Marie-Eve Baril and her brother, Jean-Sébastien Baril, took over in 2010, the brand has expanded dramatically. “We’ve grown about five or six times bigger in terms of volume and employees. We’re all across North America,” she says.
Nostalgia and Fashion Inspire New Collections
To mark its 40th anniversary, Baril launched Archive 40, a limited-edition reinterpretation of one of the company’s original bathroom faucets from the 1980s. The pink-and-gold-toned design embraces vintage-inspired details and soft pastel finishes, with only 40 numbered pieces produced. “We had fun with it,” says Baril.
One of their most striking collections is Marie Kitchen, created in collaboration with Montreal fashion designer Marie Saint Pierre. This sculptural collection includes tactile spherical handles and bright tangelo-orange accents inspired by food and colour. “The sphere itself is not perfectly round. It’s organic. So when you touch it, you feel a movement on the sphere,” says Baril. The collection was inspired by elemental forms and sensuality: “The sphere was the earth and the spout was the thing that delivered the water out of the earth.”
A Family Business Built on Beauty
Despite the company’s growth, Baril says its original philosophy remains unchanged. Her mother started the business to bring beautiful products into people’s homes, and this hasn’t changed. That design-first thinking feels increasingly relevant as kitchens and bathrooms evolve into spaces that are as emotional and expressive as they are practical. According to Baril, homeowners interact with these spaces more intimately than they may realize. “The faucet, especially in the kitchen, is the product that you will touch the most in your house every day.”
Baril, now president of the company, says she always knew she wanted to work in business and eventually join the family company. As children, she and her brother regularly accompanied their parents to trade exhibitions and were immersed in conversations about suppliers, customers and design trends.
