Milady, designer behind Brownstone Playhouse

Who's that Lady.............

Milady Hartmann is the designer behind the Brownstone Playhouse brand.

These one-of-a-kind, heirloom, soft textile sculptures are inspired by the contemporary and imaginary world that inhibits a child's curiosities and transforms into a world of wonder through the art of story telling.

Milady has expanded the soft textile sculptural toys into home decor items such as quilts, pillows, mobile sculptures, and wall mount creatures. Her ability to develop characters and stories stems from designing set and costume design for film and television over the years.

Needless to say that Milady's formal training at School of Fashion Industries and Parsons School of Design of New York has tremendously impacted her flurry of designs and work ethics.

The company began out of a need to create a playhouse that resembles Milady's own brownstone home in New York. Then, she went on searching the market for a replica of a “brownstone” for her children to play in to no avail. Milady designed a playhouse with imaginative, soft-sculptural personalities drawn from classic folktales and fables infusing them into the “Brownstone Playhouse” brand.

Brownstone Playhouse is an online business located in Montreal, Canada. Products are handmade and masterfully crafted in small, limited quantities. Designed to be passed down through the generations as heirlooms.

Our Mission

Our mission is to create artful, soft-sculpture toys and home decor products that tell a story combining reality and fantasy which allows children to freely express their creativity.

Storytelling and role-playing can be essential to children's growth. As they navigate the journey of life in the 21st century, whether directly or indirectly, they face issues such as empathy, fairness, race, community, politics, civil rights, social justice, voting, health/mental-health, climate change to name a few. At Brownstone Playhouse we aim to mitigate anxiety and increase understanding through artistry and storytelling.

Our Values

At Brownstone Playhouse, we value understanding, innovation, curiosity, diversity and the freedom of imagination. We understand that creativity stems from something tangible or abstract. We apply the concept of "ordinary" and transform it into something "extraordinary".

Inspiration

Milady draws her inspirations from classic folktales, fairy tales, fables

and stories that conjure morals, culture, customs and global references.

Here are a few authors who have influenced Milady's creations:

English writer, Beatrix Potter, "Peter Rabbit"

Danish writer and poet, Hans Christian Andersen, "The Little Match Girl"

French writer, Charles Perrault, "Mother Goose"

French poet, Jean de LaFontaine," The grasshopper and the Ant"

Aesops' Fables, *(a slave, 16th century BC, Ancient Greece) ,

"The town mouse and the country Mouse"

to name a few.

Some of Milady's works were featured at the following places and institutions: