After forty years of business, Monsieur Machine à Coudre has become a reference in Montreal for any make or model of domestic and industrial sewing machines. Each of the thousands of sewing machines owner Afonso Dasilveira has repaired have made every day a glistening new perspective; this is what has kept his passion for his job almost as big as it is for his perdition: fishing. “There is never a routine here,” says Afonso.
If you have an emergency, Monsieur Machine à Coudre makes factory calls. If you are on a quest to revive your grandmother’s sewing machine, you needn’t order the obscure replacement parts online, you could ask Paul Dasilveira, Afonso’s son. “I organised our inventory of millions of needles, and filed all our machine parts into cabinets,” Paul says.
You’ll be ushered into the shop by the black corseted curves of Victorian models mingling with clusters of mid-century, light green laminate machine tabletops. “A film production recently rented all the green ones,” says Paul.
