Design Public is a fantastic entrepreneurial story. Started by Drew and his partner Sina in 2003, they’ve truly turned their passion into a successful and personally-fulfilling business.

Thanks for talking to us Drew! Let’s start with one of my favorite questions – what’s been your happiest moment at Design Public?

I think my happiest moment was when our company first passed $1000 a day in revenue back in the early days, because by my back of the envelope calculation that meant that I could feed myself and wouldn’t have to take another job any time soon. True, I was only eating ramen, but still — the feeling of personal freedom was and is intoxicating. I go to bed every night excited about getting up the next morning and working on my business. I never expected to find this in life. I very quickly went from a design fan who started a company to an entrepreneur who happens to work in design. Entrepreneurship has become my true passion.

How did Design Public start? Why did you choose to start a design shop?

We started in 2003. Sina Djafari and I had graduated from business school and were focusing in on the design industry as one we were very passionate about. (Sina has a degree in engineering and industrial design; I’m just a big fan). Our research led us down a lot of dead-end streets — we thought at one time that we were going to create slipcovers, for example — before we just said “the hell with it” and threw up a website to learn more about the industry and what sells. The logic was that we’d gain experience and then create our own products. Low and behold the retail part took off and seven years later we are still focused on retail and customer service.

What a great story! What makes Design Public a special destination to shop online?

When we started the company, we wanted to focus on two big things — product and the public. We launched in 2003, and at the time most design was sold through high-end, condescending showrooms. You either knew your stuff or you weren’t part of the cool club. My business partner Sina and I looked in the mirror and knew we were not designers — we were design fans. So we wanted to build a site that aimed the spotlight on the “design public” — the customers and designers that take part in the design conversation — and let them speak in their own words. We were the first design retailer to blog and start throwing up designer and customer interviews, and it is something core to our mission. And today our focus is on delivering a great customer experience with knowledgeable, fun phone “design consultants” who can help you choose the perfect item for your home.

How has the site changed since you started? What have you guys learned along the way?

The industry has become a lot more crowded! It seems like you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a new modern design shop. The barriers to entry are so low — it takes all of $50 a month to set up a web store — that more and more entrants pour into the market every year. So we’ve learned that in order to create a good niche, you have to earn repeat business — you have to focus on your customer and on exceeding their expectations so that they come back. Starting a store is easy, but this part is very, very hard.

That makes a lot of sense. Let’s talk about design for a minute. What do you look for, and how do you find new designers and objects?

We look for great emerging design. Established brands are available everywhere these days, so we wanted to focus on the new, fresh stuff. Thing that solve real problems or create an emotional attachment in the buyer. In the early days, we pounded the pavement at design schools out in San Francisco and at ICFF here in NYC. Today we do a little of that, but rely more and more on customer recommendations and designer referrals.

What new item are you most excited about, and what are your favorite “classics” ?

I’m a fan of all Blu Dot items — I love those guys. Everything they make is well thought out. Take the Chicago 8-box for example. It ships flat-pack, so it reduces waste and shipping cost. And it is essentially one piece of furniture repeated eight times to reduce manufacturing cost. Brilliant. I’d put them in our “classics” category since we’ve been selling them since the beginning. As for new items, right now I’m backing the Stadler Form Otto Fan. It’s a bit of a departure from the categories we usually merchandise, but it’s functional and has a great stylish wood panel detail that is exciting.

What’s been the hardest part of starting your company?

It’s been walking the line between entrepreneur and developer. My business partner Sina would agree. We did a lot of the software development that allows us to manage shipments and operations of over 150 different design vendors. But when we have our head in the code, we aren’t able to lead or focus on the big picture. So it takes a lot of mental discipline to carve out time to do both and ensure you are always being productive.

How many people are a part of your team? What’s your office like?
We are a small team — a couple in marketing, a couple in operations and merchandising, and a strong customer service team. We are also virtual — so we don’t have a company HQ. Our team works from all over the US, and we love the fact that our approach allows for a ton of individual flexibility in work style. I spent May working from Paris, for example. Many of our customer service team have small children, so they can balance company time with family time. I really love this aspect of our culture — it’s what I wanted when I started a business. Today I’m typing this from a personal office I have off Madison Square Park in NYC and I’m on IM with about eight people in eight states.

It definitely sounds like you’re living the dream! So inspiring. Last question – what advice do you have for fledgling entrepreneurs?

Wow, I have enough to fill a book! I could pass on some truisms like “just go for it” or “keep on trying”, but I’m not sure how helpful those really are. The thing that has helped me the most has been “iterate quickly”. Get your product out the door as soon as you can, even if it isn’t perfect. The feedback you’ll receive from the market is gold.

[image via Flickr]

When did you decide to work for yourselves?

L: We’d been living and working in New York for about 8 years. I was working for the designer Todd Oldham doing his PR, and Derek was in magazines. We’d had our jobs for a while and we were ready to do our own thing.

D: I was a magazine editor. I would get there at 9 in the morning, I would come home at 1 in the morning, and it was pressure, stress. It was fun and exciting and everything, but at some point you think about the future. I was the managing editor at Interview, right? So what’s the next job, Editor-in-chief? No thanks. I didn’t want to commit to that lifestyle. We wanted to mellow out. We had this vision, this totally false vision, that starting your own business would be mellow.

Haha!

D: The fantasy was, “Oh, how nice it’ll be to sit in our shop and listen to cool music and greet customers and sell things.” And then we quickly realized how much harder it is than that. I mean, that’s true to some extent. People come into the shop and we’re listening to cool music and we say, “Hi! How’s it going?”

L: But we’re also calculating sales tax and writing POs.

What was your inspiration for the store?

D: It’s about supporting our friends who are designers. It’s about the objects, but then it’s about supporting and loving the people behind the objects. We met Lorena Barrezueta a long time ago – she makes the really fancy porcelain dishware that looks like take-out containers. People would always come over to our house and ask, “Oh my god what is this? Where did you get this?” Enough people said that about enough things in our home that we kind of thought, “We should open a shop.”

L: When people ask us about the items in our store, for almost all of the things we can say, “Our friend so-and-so made this.” We have a relationship with all of the vendors that we order from.

Porcelain dishes by Lorena Barrezueta.

Once you decided you wanted to have a store, how did you put that in motion?

L: We came to San Francisco and started with an online store. We called everyone we knew who made stuff. We looked around the house and found the names of the designers of all our favorite stuff. We called everybody and ordered very small amounts of things, and started our website. At which point we ran out of money and Derek got a job at ReadyMade.

D: The day when we were really like, “OK, now what do we do?” ReadyMade magazine called. It was perfect. I was able to edit ReadyMade, which was wonderfully synergistic with the things we were doing. But then, poor Lauren – I was working at ReadyMade four days a week, and she was kind of running the shop by herself.

L: It was not very much fun. I was fully communicating with people on the computer, and spending a lot of my time in a basement packing and shipping boxes.

When did you move into the retail location?

L: We opened almost two years ago. The space used to be a veterinary clinic. We found it kind of by accident. There was an apartment upstairs that was available at the same time, so we could live above our store. We did demolition and designed and built out the whole thing in two months. Our friends from Civil Twilight Collective designed the space, and an army of friends and neighbors came to our weekend construction parties to help put the space together.

Pocket Brush manufactured by hand at the Union Sozialer Einrichtungen factory in Berlin

How would you describe what goes in your store?

D: The little catch phrase that I throw out sometimes is “items to admire and inspire.” It’s things that are special – things that you react to. I want people to have a reaction when they come into the store. And I think the best reaction in life is laughter or joy.

L: We buy things we would have in our home. It’s really just what our taste is.

D: There’s nothing in our shop that we don’t love. It’s gotta be fun for us, because it’s so much work. I would never want to sit in a shop that was full of stuff I wasn’t in love with.

And there’s this whole handmade aspect, right?

D: We love handmade things. It’s our inspiration. But I don’t think we could ever have a shop that was all handmade, because it’s also important to us that things be accessible. We couldn’t maintain our business if it was only handmade, in the price range that we’re into.

L: It’s all about the mix. It’s all about the curating.

D: Lauren and I have always been curating things. In college we lived in Venice, Italy, and I worked in an arts organization for promoting young artists. There was a wall of file cabinets and artists would come in and drop off portfolios. Curators were supposed to come and go through this archive and find artists, but nobody did. Lauren and I thought, “Why don’t we just curate a show ourselves?” I convinced the people I worked for that I needed to make this happen for my schooling, so they funded the whole thing. It was awesome. It turned into a four-day art extravaganza.

L: After that we moved back to Santa Cruz, where we lived for a year before we moved out to New York. I was working at a cafe in this old Victorian house. They had painted all the rooms different colors, but there was no art on the walls. So we curated a bunch of art shows in this cafe.

D: That relationship of working with people who make things – it’s just so amazing. It’s so fun. We always wanted to be doing that. As a magazine editor I curated all the time, just in a different way. I love collaboration. The store is a really fun way for us to collaborate and to curate.

Talking Paintings by artist J. Richel.

Speaking of curating, you’re out here in New York photographing and doing interviews for your next book. How did you guys start writing books?

D: We have a very Do-It-Yourself background and we’re very crafty, and I have a background in publishing, so people have been talking to us for a while about book projects.

L: We did a book about wallpaper that just came out in April, with Chronicle Books. It’s all about crafty things you can do with wallpaper. So many graphic designers and illustrators are now creating wallpaper, and you can do all this cool stuff with it.

D: We also did a book called Show Me How, which is an illustrated encyclopedia of how to do 500 things. It’s all done in a very fun, airplane-card infographics style. All of the credit should go to the illustrators, because it’s so easy for us to be like, “Oh, let’s do how to ride a mechanical bull.” We’ll research proper mechanical bull technique, and write out the steps and give it to them to illustrate. They always come back with these amazing drawings.

L: We’re working on a follow-up to that right now.

D: Once a week we go in to the publisher and we all sit around a table, and we go, “Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to do ‘How to do the tango’ or ‘How to rewire a lamp’ or ‘how to shoot an arrow’.” Then we go back and we research all that stuff and storyboard it.

Wallpaper Projects by Derek Fagerstrom and Lauren Smith.

Now that you’ve been working for yourselves for a few years, what advice do you have for people that want to set out on that path?

L: Don’t overthink it. We started the business just because we thought it would be fun. We bought some stuff and we maxed out our credit card and we just started it. Later on, to take it to the next step, we needed to do a business plan and all that. But I think if I had thought about it too much in the beginning, I would have talked myself out of it.

D: I would say don’t be afraid to start small. A lot of people think, “Opening a store? Oh my god! It’s going to be overhead, and employees, and blah blah blah.” You can really psych yourself out that way. Start small and see if people are into it.

L: Right. We started with just the online store. We designed our own site and we kept everything in a basement space.

D: You just have to start. A ton of people say, “Oh, I admire you guys doing your own thing. But I’m worried about losing my…” I totally understand that – it’s totally true. But at some point you’ve got to say, “Fuck it.” And then once you start to do your own thing, all these opportunities come. Lauren and I would not be writing books and hanging out with you guys if we hadn’t started over. I could be editor-in-chief at a magazine right now, sweating it out.

Working until 1AM.

L: Well, we still work until 1AM, but in the comfort of our own home.

D: And it’s fun. It’s so different doing it for yourself.

How would you describe the Factory Vintage aesthetic, to people who haven’t been in here?

It’s retro. The store that I really emulated is Biba, in London. They started out in a store that was probably about my store’s size, and then moved on to have a whole department store. They only lasted like 10 years, because they got so big that it imploded. The founder was really into Art Deco and the 1930’s and 40’s. They used these Victorian coat racks to hang clothes on. It had so much of her personality in it. That’s what I’m shooting for with Factory Vintage – it’s more like a lifestyle than a boutique. It’s just an extension of me.

Where do you get all your clothing?

Sometimes I go thrifting around the city, but mainly people bring it in and I buy what I like. I just go through it and pick out what I think is salable, and and then I wash or dry clean it. For the accessories – I buy new sunglasses and earrings and things like that, for people who want them for parties.

When did you start the store?

At the end of August, it’ll be 2 years since I opened. A store called Viva Vintage used to be here. I worked there for 5 years, through college and after. Then the old owner decided that she didn’t want to have a storefront anymore – she’d been doing it for 10 years. One day she told me, “I’m thinking about closing,” and I thought, “Crap! What am I going to do?”

So I took over the space, painted, added carpeting, and got all new racks and furniture. I wanted it to be more homey. I also wanted it to be more open, so I can keep an eye on people. The old owner used to have tons of problems with shoplifting. One summer we had a mass theft of tube tops – you’d go to organize and there would be like 15 of them gone. They’re like $8! Is there a black market for tube tops?

On that note, what’s been the hardest part about running a store?

I’ve been really lucky in that my dad started his own studio, and so he has been awesome at helping me out with my spazz-outs! He told me, “Caitlin, when I opened the studio, I had 6 months where I didn’t have any clients.” You’ll have days where it’s totally dead and you’re like, “Fuck! Nobody’s ever going to buy anything ever again!” And then the next day is amazing.

I was talking to one of our neighbors, who owns a bookstore on Printer’s Row that’s been there for 20 years, and she told me, “We definitely have days where we make $10 and think, ‘Crap this is it, we’re done.’ And then the next day is fine. That never goes away.”

Also, trying not to take stuff personally is really hard. Because it’s your taste, it’s an extension of you. So I have to remember that when somebody doesn’t like something, it’s not against me.

So where do you hope for the store to go?

The direction I would love to go is to have vintage, but also have new clothes. I would love to be bigger. It would be awesome if I could have a store in London!

How have you funded this, starting out?

I took out a $40K bank loan. It took about 6 months. I did a business plan – I just got a book from the library and I basically copied it with my own information. I took it to 3 different banks, and we ended up getting it from Devon bank, because my dad had a relationship with them. He co-signed, since I was 24 and I don’t have anything in collateral. And even so, it still took a long time. Now, with the recession, I can’t imagine what it would be like to try and get a loan. It was definitely stressful. And $40K isn’t anything, really.

Your concept of money really changes. Especially when you’re our age and you’ve never bought a house, you’ve never dealt with tens of thousands of dollars before.

I know – for a while I thought it was the weirdest thing to write a check for like $2,000. But it’s amazing, when you’re starting, how much everything adds up.

What’s your advice to people who want to work for themselves?

Make sure that it’s not all about your job all the time. That can be really hard, when it’s your business. You’ve got to compartmentalize. If you have a really bad day, you have to be able to go home and turn it off, otherwise you will drive yourself insane! It took me a year or so to figure that out.

STPLxAIRWALK collection

You do so many things – I’m really curious, timeline-wise, what was first? What was the first project you created?

First was clothing. I was at Parsons School of Design for graphic design, so I guess you could say that was first. But it was just schooling. I didn’t make any money from it.

What inspired you to do clothing?

It started because I was taking a silkscreening class. They taught you how to silkscreen on canvas and paper. Well, my friends weren’t really about putting art up on the wall of their shitty apartments that they shared with six people. There probably wasn’t even a wall – more like a curtain! I wanted to make tees for my friends to wear. That was really how it started. And the funny story is that Parsons didn’t allow you to print on t-shirts.

Really?

Yeah. They didn’t allow it. So a friend of mine and I would break into the silkscreen lab. We would leave a window open and climb in at night. We would come in with a pillowcase full of tees, set up a sweatshop, and print stuff. It was really, again, just to give out to friends.

STPL collection Spring 2009

That changed on March 7th, 1997 – my birthday. I was going to go out with my girlfriend and get a nice dinner. She wanted to get her hair done, so I dropped her off at a hair salon. While she was there, I went shopping and walked into a store on Lafayette – Triple Five Soul. Back then, in ‘97, Triple Five Soul was a boutique; it was a much smaller operation. I walked in and the manager said, “Hey, that’s a cool shirt you’re wearing, where’d you get it?” I told him I made it, and he said, “Well, if you make 12, I’ll try to sell them here.”

Nice!

That was the first order. I always wonder, if my girlfriend wasn’t doing her hair, or if I didn’t go in that store, literally this whole thing that you see might not exist. I had no plan to do it. It’s weird to think that if I’d made a left on Crosby or something, my whole life could have been changed!

So what happened next? Did you start trying to sell the shirts more?

No! [laughs] It just happened.

In a week, the guy at Triple Five Soul told me, “We sold out. We’ll take 24 this time.” So I made 24. Then another store in SoHo, called Union, saw what we were doing. They said, “Hey, we love your stuff. Why don’t you do a different design for us, and we’ll start ordering.” So I was selling to two shops in SoHo, all the while, still breaking into school with my friend to make the shirts.

Eventually it got to the point where my studio apartment in Chinatown was like a sweatshop. There were boxes everywhere. I had my friend in fashion design cutting labels and sewing them in. I had another friend making hang tags for me. I remember one time when we had to get an order out the next day, the needle on the sewing machine broke. It was the last needle. And it was 3AM! I started calling all these places to try and get more, and finally found a place that was open. I skated up to 70th St. When I finally brought the needles back, they were like the holy grail! That’s how we started. It was pretty fun.

STPL collection Spring 2009

How did you go from having your clothing line to doing work for clients?

People who were fans of the t-shirts would come to me and say, “Hey, I heard you’re a graphic designer, can you help us with our CD cover?” Or business card, logo, party flier… Various little odd jobs . I started taking that on as well, and the business kind of became twofold.

So when you graduated, were you set up enough that you just went straight into doing your own thing?

I didn’t graduate. I dropped out. It was my second year, sophomore year, that I was doing this.

Wow, that was quick!

I’m a hustler. I get bored easily. I’ve gotta do something! My sophomore year those two SoHo stores were putting in orders for 24 or 36 shirts. Then this Japanese guy bought one of my shirts at Union and told them, “I want to talk to this guy,” so they gave him my number. He calls me at home and he says, “I want a shirt, and I live in Japan.” And I was like, “That’s awesome! I’ll send you a shirt in Japan.” And he’s like, “Uh, no, I want 1,000 shirts.” My third order! 1,000 shirts.

No way. That’s when you have to drop everything and just do it.

I was like, “Please hold,” and started screaming and jumping up and down on the bed. And then got back on the phone, “OK, yes, 1,000 shirts, we can do that.”

But I had no idea how – how was I going to break into school with 1,000 t-shirts? That was really when I said, OK, I can always go back to school. But this opportunity – I’m not going to tell this guy, “Let me graduate, let me take my finals first.” It was now or never. I took the opportunity, and I haven’t gone back yet. But I do teach now! I teach at NYU, Parsons, and I just started teaching at Columbia University, at the executive master’s program. I don’t even have an associates degree! It’s kind of ironic.

Reed Space in the LES

It makes you think about the value of school.

It does. I think school is for some people and not for others. It just depends on how your brain is wired.

So your clothing brand was taking off, and your consultancy was taking off – when did you open Reed Space?

Right as the clothing line was doing well, I knew I wanted a retail store. When I would go to visit stores that carried Staple, I’d always be a bit disappointed. As a store, you’re not worried about individual brands, you’re worried about your whole shop. I would think, “Why are they displaying it like that?” Or I’d listen to a guy selling it to a customer and I’d think, “That’s not the concept!” It just wasn’t right. I always felt, “Man, I want to open my own store.” And not just to sell Staple, but to represent brands properly and in a way that they respect and appreciate.

In 2001, 9/11 happened. Our office at the time was on Division St., which is in the shadow of the World Trade Center. I couldn’t go to my office for weeks. Sometimes they would let us in, but the electricity was shot. If you printed and faxed and got a phone call at the same time, all the power would just go down. We had to move.

Why did you move to the Lower East Side?

One of the other things that I like to do is DJ, and I was DJing at this place that doesn’t exist anymore, that was on Orchard St. DJing would mean getting off of work at 5AM, standing outside with your records, and waiting 20 or 30 minutes for a cab to come. This was 2001, so the LES wasn’t like now. You had to hope that cabs would come by.

One night, as I was waiting for a cab, I looked across the street and I saw this “For Rent” sign on a storefront. When I looked in the window, I saw that the store went through the whole block and had a second entrance on Allen St. It was amazing! I immediately typed down the phone number. I called the guy, and then the next day I went to go look at it.

Reed Space in the LES

So you moved your office into that storefront?

Originally, it was Reed Space on one side, and Staple Design in the back. I built a partition to separate the space.
The idea was to have a design studio, and then make clothes and just put them in the store. Plus we could talk to our customers – it seemed perfect.

A couple years later, we moved Staple Design out, and made Reed Space the whole thing. The split space wasn’t big enough to carry all the brands that I wanted to be in Reed Space. And we were trying to work in the back, but every 30 seconds someone was coming in. In the beginning, only 10 people a day would come in, and it was fine. But once there was a constant stream of people, we couldn’t get any work done. So we had to separate.

Wow – so Reed Space just kind of took off on it’s own.

Yeah. Again, maybe if I wasn’t DJing that night, or if I didn’t look in a certain direction, there would be no Reed Space. I never said, “I’m going to open a store. I’m going to hire real estate agents, and scout locations, and create a P&L, and a budget.”

In the beginning my path was very random, and it felt random. But more recently, I’ve learned the ability to listen to that voice in me. You could say that it was totally random that I went to Triple Five Soul, or totally random that I found Reed Space. But I think that there is some sort of ethereal voice that compels you to do these things. The key to success is listening to that voice and acting on it. I think if you can get yourself in tune with that, whatever you want to call it, third eye, or soul – different people have different words for it – then you can start really rocking.

STPL collection Spring 2009

So as the whole thing grew, and you started bringing other people in and making a business out of it, what was the hardest lesson to learn? What was the hardest part of all of that?

People management. I’m still working on that one. It’s hard. We have a team of, depending on the time of year, anywhere between 18 and 20 people. The team is the most important thing, because no matter how smart or how hard-working you are, there’s only 24 hours in the day, 7 days in the week, and you’re only one person. You can only do so much. You need an army of people to help you.

I didn’t take any business classes or anything like that, but I do now read a lot of business magazines. The one thing that I always am intrigued about is management skills, for lack of a better word. Trying to figure out how to get the most out of people. A really big part of my job now, as President or CEO, is making sure that people are in the right position to do the best job possible. You might have a person that is a great person, but stuck in the wrong seat. You put them in the right seat and all of a sudden they’re a star! You don’t want to just fire somebody – you’ve got to make sure that you’ve vetted them properly.

That’s a really good attitude to have. What are you working on now? What are you excited about at the moment?

Well, let’s see. I just came back from Europe, and we showing/selling our Spring 2010 collection. Now, the second you get back from that, you go straight into designing and brainstorming for Fall 2010.

We’re also working on the next issue of Reed Pages. Quite honestly, I haven’t been this excited about a project in years. And it’s ironic that it’s this old-school art form – making a magazine. It’s experimental, in the way it’s done, and the feedback we’ve gotten on it has been incredible. I’m not looking to make millions of dollars with it, because it’s a dying industry, but it is something that I’m really excited about.

Jeff’s new magazine, Reed Pages

One last question. What does it take to succeed as an entrepreneur? What’s your advice to people who want to work for themselves?

Be prepared to work the hardest you’ve ever worked in your life, and multiply that by 100! And, hey, some people aren’t cut out for it. That’s cool, that’s why they make desk jobs where you just clock in at 9, clock out at 5, and you’re done. Your definition of “hard work” really has to be redefined. I talk to some friends, and they say, “Oh my god, it was such a busy day, I had a meeting! And I had to go to the bank! It was so hard, there was like a long line at the bank…” And I’m like, “I did that from 9:15 to 9:30!”

One comment I always get is, “Man, if I was just as lucky as you…” You know what, come to my office at 3AM, and I’ll show you how lucky I am. You don’t see that part – all you see is the Nike that came out, or the finished art exhibit, or the trip to Paris. It’s really hard to explain how much work goes into making those things happen.

We may have been late to the party, but we’re making up for it by bringing you an interview with the founders, Serap Demirag and Deger Cengiz, about how they started and their vision for the space.

You’ve got a great group of designers in here. How did you go about finding the people you wanted to work with?

We researched and came up with 35 different designers. Then we called them one by and one, and visited their studios. I’ll be honest with you, when I first came up with the idea, I though the designers would have huge egos and rock star personalities – but every time we left a studio, we’d be overwhelmed by how nice they were.

What made you decide to open a furniture store?

I saw this beautiful table by Palo Samko at the Architectural Digest show. I was so drawn to it. Then I realized he was a Brooklyn designer – I didn’t even know Brooklyn had a design scene! That started everything.

I started looking into it, going to BKLYN Designs, and realized how much much talent is here. And I realized how much beautiful furniture there is that’s not being showcased. I wanted to open a store in Williamsburg to show it. I’d already been in the home furnishings field for 15 years. I loved furniture, I knew about it. I realized opening a store was too much work for one person, so I asked my friend Deger if he wanted to be partners. He jumped right in, and we started doing it together.

[image via Apartment Therapy]

I found the space last March. It was still under construction, so there was some time for us to prepare. Initially I was going to open in October, but it was postponed, which was good because that was the worst time in the economy.

Why weren’t these great pieces already represented in showrooms?

Since the work is made locally, out of beautiful materials, it makes the pieces very expensive. It’s expensive for the designer to even sell to customers directly. And normal showrooms need to mark up the prices two or two-and-a-half times to be able to make money and take the risk of buying a piece of furniture. With that kind of markup, these pieces become so expensive they are unsellable.

[image via Apartment Therapy]

So how have you gotten around that problem at VOOS?

We came up with the idea of making this more like an art gallery. We take a small commission, and sell the pieces at their list prices. Then we approached designers with the idea, and they loved it. We asked each designer to show us what they already had in stock, and picked from those pieces for our initial opening inventory.

Moving forwards, we are going to switch out the pieces in the space every two months or so, to showcase more of their work. The idea is to sell a designer’s pieces off the floor, to give them the means to make something new.

Also, since all the designers are local, they can customize their pieces. If a customer comes in here and wants a coffee table longer or shorter, or in a different material, it’s possible. We’re the place for those kinds of things. Anyone can come here, talk to us about what they’d like, and we can help them work with the designers to get exactly what they want.

[image via Apartment Therapy]

I love the concept. You’re not just a store – you’re also a community resource.

People like to know about the designers. We can tell you how Takeshi works right down the block. Every piece has it’s story, and we know it because we are friends with the designers. People like that. It makes it all much more personal.

Now I feel this pressure – we really need to make it for the designers we represent. Some of them are expecting babies. Some just became dads, others are having another child. They’re real people.

How do you want VOOS to grow?

We need to become a destination for interior designers and architects. What I didn’t realize was going to be so difficult, is bringing the Manhattanites into Brooklyn. Our real clientele, who is going to buy the $9,000 table, usually uses an interior designer. That’s why we need to get them to know about us.

People are starting to hear our name though, and once it really sticks in their mind it will be easier. You can see these are very beautiful, solid pieces. They are not just a fun design. We passionately love the work that is made here.

[image via The Architect's Newspaper]

Image of the shop via Refinery29

How did you end up in this space?

Elizabeth: We chose this neighborhood because we liked it; it felt odd. It didn’t seem like a very good idea from a geographical standpoint. It’s too far down and too far East. So people have different expectations than they do if they’re on Mott street. This location informed what we did with the space. It also made the space cheaper, and allowed us to experiment. If it had been five blocks up, our rent would have been at least double. We’d have to stock things that sell easier. Not that these things don’t sell well, but they’re more challenging and more specific.

Leather Covered Domino Set by Natalia Brilli

Brian: We also had the idea that if we kind of tucked ourselves away, we would have time to figure out what we were doing. By the time people found us, we would have more of a firm statement, a better understanding of what we were trying to do.

What was the original concept?

Brian: The idea we started with was distributing the tangents, or side projects, that we had seen others do. People who have careers as architects, or painters, and weirdly on the side they’re making jewelry, or clothing, or bags. We’d come in contact with so many of these people over the years, and seen their side projects that are totally amazing. We’d ask about something, and they’d say, “It’s just a hobby, it’s not going to go anywhere.”

Elizabeth: Or they knew what it takes to get something into the world, and didn’t want to put their energy there.

Brian: We imagined we’d have a space, really low key, that could be a home for these orphaned projects. Pieces that should be seen, but through whatever course of events, might never be. That’s how it started. A space to hold these digressions, these side projects. Ours as well as other people’s. For us, if we’re working on projects, now we have a home for them – it’s that simple. We don’t have do worry about where they exist in the world.

How has it evolved?

Brian: Elizabeth is a partner in a gallery in Berlin, so we commute back and forth. Through the travel, we’ve collided with a lot of different people, doing a lot of different things. We started inviting people to do projects for the space. We ask them to let us show the work they are doing. It’s evolved from the ground up.

Cork Necklace by Margiela

How have you balanced your own need to create, with the needs of running a functioning business?

Elizabeth: We’re constantly trying to figure out the ratio, to carve out a balance between supporting what’s already been made and making new things.

Brian: It’s dauting in its own way. If you make something, and it’s successful, that’s not the end of it. That’s only the beginning. It requires an infinite amount of support. I think that is why certain artists and designers find their niche, and do that thing over and over, generating different versions. Not only the creation of the idea, but the story, the distribution, and the expression all take so much support. It’s a lot of phone calls, dealing with people, interviews, and emails. You do all of these things and 60% of them aren’t that enjoyable. But they’re the substructure to a successful project.

What do you think is the most important part of your personal creative process?

Elizabeth: I think the idea of digression is so important. Sometimes you let yourself digress, sometimes you don’t – but when you do is often when you find yourself in the most interesting place.

Brian: That’s true. A lot of the most interesting projects I do are the ones in-between. You have a quick thought and you execute it. It may have taken 15 minutes. You put it aside. Time passes and when you look back at it, it’s some of the best stuff you’ve done.

Image of the shop via Paper Mag
Elizabeth: It tends to be more poetic, less burdened with meaning.

Brian: Definitely less self-censored. If you have the idea that you’re going to do something very public, then you want the project to be perceived as worthwhile. That frame of mind can get in your way. If something is very personal and it evolves out of a genuine need to make, those things can be so pure, honest, and joyful, that they end up being the strongest.

Do you have any tips for getting into that honest, joyful frame of mind?

Brian: I went to grad school for graphic design, and we had a lot of visiting designers. A lot of brilliant Dutch designers – such interesting characters. I remember two people in particular, being astounded and shocked at how we were approaching the projects. We were spending so much time working on them. They would say “I don’t understand how you can get at anything by just sitting and looking at it. You need to ride your bicycle. You need to have a drink with your friends at the bar.”

They had a very different ethic, a very different approach to solving things. They would demand we go out and drink. “You’re not getting anything done by thinking over everything that has to happen. You’re not doing anything.” We needed to just do something, have some drinks, laugh, chat, talk, and tell horror stories. Then we would wander back to the studios and get it all done – figure the problem out naturally.

Angora Covered Bricks by Various Projects

Can you tell us what you’re working on now?

Brian: We’re opening another shop in May, around the corner. We’ve been working on it for a long time. It will be more menswear, as well as objects. We’ll also be representing a German furniture company that we are big fans of. And we are opening a third retail space, in what will be the Ace Hotel, on 29th and Broadway. It’s going to be a hotel shop as well as a design store for the neighborhood. A hybrid. It should open in late spring or early summer.

Elizabeth: We’re also making more clothing. We’re going to be doing some men’s suits for fall, and some women’s wear.

Brian: We’ve had a clothing line for a little while, but we’ve been making things in a casual, unambitious way because we’ve had so much else on our plate.

Before we wrap up, do you have any advice for young entrepreneurs?

Elizabeth: Be as hard working and creative as possible when you solve problems. On top of that, to try to be as clueless as you can about how hard it is going to be. If you anticipate all the things that go wrong, you won’t do anything.

Brian: You have to just do it, and figure it out as you go. That’s how it works for us. It’s not the smartest way – that would be to have a business plan, to really plot it out. We tried that once, and it completely deadened the idea. It rendered it sterile, wrenched out all the life.

Very Small Whiskey Flask

Ryan, you have a webstore, Elsewares, which came before Supermarket. Tell me a little about how that got started.

Ryan: I had a previous life as a documentary filmmaker, and at the tail end of a PBS project I realized that I enjoyed making the film’s web site as much as, maybe more than, the process of making the film. Around the same time, in 2003, a friend of mine came up with an agitprop product called Bush Cards, and I helped him build an online store that was extremely successful. I wanted to repeat that experience, so I turned to other products that I thought the world should know about, and – thats how Elsewares started.

Randy, what is your background?

Randy: In design, as a graphic designer. I started working with Ryan through Elsewares, and it really just evolved. We committed to the idea of Supermarket, and decided to turn it into something.

So what made you want to expand into new online territory and create Supermarket?

Ryan: Supermarket came out of what Elsewares wasn’t. Elsewares is a traditional online retailer: it holds stock, carries inventory and we ship all the products. There’s always been a limit to how large it could get, and how large we wanted it to get, and that in turn has always limited the number of designers and great products we could work with.

How do you curate the designers on Supermarket?

Ryan: What we aim to do, by curating the collection, is not create something that’s exclusive, but rather the inverse – create a site, a platform which attracts as much good work as possible. We find that good work attracts good work, so we just try to follow this vein of good design, and there are things which naturally fit into that.

Randy: It’s very intuitive, kind of a gut reaction – it’s what would you buy yourself? Can I be a fan of this product?

Ryan: If there is any criteria it’s, “Would I buy this, and tell my friends about it?”

Randy: It’s a rare occasion when we have to ask each other, “Do you think this fits?”

Do you have any loose figures about how many designers there are on the site, and how many products?

Ryan: The last time we published figures it was several hundred designers, and more then 6000 products. But it’s not quantity, its quality – we want people to have a sense that they can always go to Supermarket, see and find cool stuff, and not be overwhelmed.

It’s interesting when compared to Etsy, which has blown up into this massive thing. How do you feel the two sites relate?

Ryan: Etsy has obviously tapped into a big handmade thing. There’s some overlap between designers that sell at Supermarket and Etsy, but beyond that we’re different web sites offering different experiences, which works for us.

What kind of traffic do you get, and how have you built it?

Randy: We started with what was happening organically, and tried to amplify it. Based on the reputations, and the visibility of many of the designers selling on the site, we were already generating a lot of traffic. Everyone thats selling gets to benefit from the traffic funneling in, so some of the less popular designers, or people who don’t have the name recognition, get to benefit from those who do.

We started to see two things happening simultaneously: one was that some mainstream blogs would have things to say often about specific products or designers, and occasional about the site at large, and at the same time, very personal blogs, where people journal about their personal shopping experience or day, were writing about their experience on Supermarket. We started looking at both those responses, and reaching out to people where the site, or specific products and designers represented on the site, seemed like a good match. Traffic has been pretty organic. Its not as though were sending “please blog us!” emails. We were just forming relationships.

Ryan: Often it starts with a blog mentioning us, and we’ll take a moment to reach out and thank them. Blogs of all kinds are really important, not just the superstar ones. We also have our newsletter which goes out every two weeks, and we try to keep it, like the site, regular and bite sized. Its not trying to stop your other train of thought to digest it, but rather act as an introduction to get to the site and check it out. Its hard to strike that right tone between interruption and offer, and keep someone interested without pestering them.

One thing that you have that’s really useful is the collective blog, could you talk a little more about that?

Ryan: We started blogging about cool products, before Supermarket was ready to go. I couldn’t just sit around and hold it in till we were ready. It was a way to draw attention, and get people to join the site, but also to share information, and have a continual conversation with our customers, without always being in sales mode.

The way it works on Supermarket is that designers can actually add to the blog. Sometimes its a post about their new product, and sometimes they’ll be blogging about other things which are tangentially related – like a new store, or show they’re in, and thats great.

Are there any new projects on the back-burner or new branches? Where do you see the Supermarket heading?

Ryan: Well now that we’re a year in, we see these things within Supermarket where we’ve only touched upon the potential. There’s no small number of things we have to work on. We do have some other things on the burner, that we think might be graceful outgrowths of Supermarket – but they aren’t ready yet.

Randy: I think one of the other things, other then the software development per se, is the idea that we can help designers to figure out how to do the stuff were doing. The blog being there, shows the importance of taking a good photograph, announcing new products in multiple venues, writing a good description – all things that work to the designers benefit. And just on a very human level, allows us to reach out to designers and help them think of things they might not have. We can reach out to designers and say: hey maybe you want to try this, maybe you want to reorganize your store this way, have you considered using these tags, heres some links to other photographs of products like yours. We’re doing this in a very manual way, but we’ve definitely touched on ideas on how to take our business insight if you will, or marketing insight, and hand it over to people as often as possible.

Ryan: Exactly, and some of these are things that designers might not spend their time thinking about, because they think its some business problem, that you can just make good products and surely they’ll sell. We’re excited to share the information we have, and highlight examples of things being done well by other sellers, so that people can learn, and not just do what they’re already doing, but grow their business.

One of the things thats really interesting about Supermarket is that its looking at the bigger picture, its about creating a system rather then
a product or webstore – could you talk about this?

Randy: Supermarket really is a system. Your designing this set of tools for people to use, thats not isolated in a storefront product , but exists in this space where people are already comfortable. Its a bridge between the business world and the personal. No one wants to deal with software, they just want to sell the stuff online. No one wants to deal with a merchant account, they just want to get paid. No one wants to have to install the blog, they just want to express themselves. There are a whole bunch of designers, with a lot of ambition, who have developed their skills in this we can do anything moment, where all the boundaries are blurring, that the assumption is that they can do everything. Supermarket helps facilitate that.

I think it’s a big design challenge, for Supermarket, that it has to be a store which fits all different types of products – in some ways it really has to recede. How did this affect the design of the site?

Randy: We definitely approached that when designing the experience of using the site. Its important that when you go to the site you see your screen filled up with other people’s work, we just create the context.

Ryan: We’ve also been impressed by how much people appreciate not just the product but the person, the designer, and the story behind what’s for sale.

What do you consider your biggest success so far?

Ryan: It’s satisfying to have something that people appreciate, that gets them talking, and which leads to more people seeking us out.

Randy: Interestingly, its funny: if you google Supermarket, we’re the first thing that comes up – above any national food chain. It wasn’t like we sat down and tried to make this happen, it happened organically, the pieces just fell into place.

What advice do you have for creative entrepreneurs?

Randy: It’s important to break things down into really small pieces. The idea of Supermarket is pretty lofty and open, you’ve got all these types of people and product, and we got the most traction and tangible results, when we focused on one or two things for a period of time, accomplished them, and then focused on one or two other things.

Ryan: I also think it’s important to be authentic. Don’t be tempted to “stage manage” your business to look like anyone else’s. Be yourself, speak in your own voice, and just use the tools at your disposal to get your message and your products out there. Forget the press release.

How did Citizen:Citizen begin?

When we started, the idea was to bring British design over to America. I was working with two business partners. The thinking behind it was that America was a bit backward. We felt that they were 10 years behind what was going on in Europe, as far as the advancement of design and object culture.

It probably still is.

It’s certainly not where Europe is. That’s a whole bigger conversation, though. But the general premise was that we could bring what we saw in Europe, particularly what was going on in London, and cross-pollinate it. One of the ideas was to hopefully open a gallery in Brooklyn, and bring what was going on in the eastern part of London over to New York. And then conversely, take what was going on in Brooklyn and cross-pollinate it back to Europe.

That was the initial notion. So we set up a gallery in New York and brought over some Frederickson Stallard pieces. About a year later, my business partners decided that they wanted to get day jobs. It was really left to me to understand whether I wanted to keep Citizen or walk away from it. And if I did keep it, what would it be?

I realized that I was most passionate about the objects in the collection which were more conceptual. They were really commenting on themselves, or the history of the material, or their context within the culture. From that moment, it was very apparent where I wanted the company to go. I started working with Tobias Wong, and we brought in Cory Ingram, who did the Crude perfume. We collaborated with Jimmy Jane. There was a whole raft of new designers and artists.

Where are you positioning Citizen:Citizen?

I think we’re very consciously commercial. We’re not ashamed of that. I think a lot of art galleries pretend they’re not commercial, but in my mind Wal-Mart and Gagosian are not that dissimilar. On one level, they’re really not.

We’ve landed, curiously, in-between these two worlds. We’re not quite a manufacturing agent. We’re not just coming in with a lot of money and a lot of expertise in making and selling, although there is expertise in making and selling. And we’re not the artist. But then, we are.

You’re not not the artist.

We are living in a middle ground, between artist and producer. We do both. And maybe that’s a good thing. I have been both an artist and a maker, so I understand the problems on both sides.

What stores have been doing well for you?

Well, you have to work with what’s in the market. There’s a huge difference between the stores that we sell to and the store that we will build. At the moment, the stores which we’ve built have been pop-up stores. Whether it be the pharmacy space that we built down in Los Angeles, or the mini-market that we collaborated on here in San Francisco.

If you think about a store, it is a context for the objects. Citizen’s about these objects, and you’re providing them with a context. A store is also about selling, and there’s all kinds of psychology behind that. Wal-Mart has store psychologists determining the whole layout, determining where the bread counter goes, etc. They do whole scientific studies on spending patterns.

Of course, none of us smaller stores are that sophisticated. And yet, we do have an understanding that the aesthetic, the interior, and the way people go around it will probably affect their decision to buy. It’s affecting their belief in you, and therefore their belief in the objects.

For us, one of the things that is really challenging is finding the right context to sell the objects. On one level, we’re commenting on consumption, overconsumption, and global capital. But we’re not just deriding it, we’re also participating in it.

Wholesaling your objects poses an interesting challenge, because you’re handing your objects off to someone else and hoping that they carry your brand message on correctly to the customer.

Yeah, it has to translate, doesn’t it? We’re doing something so fucking difficult, in many ways. We’re very commercial, but in some respects it’s not overt. We’re walking a very confusing line. I’ve always thought of us more as a fashion brand than anything else. We’re definitely not a giftware supplier, like Areaware or Charles & Marie. I’m not dismissing what they do, but that’s not our intention. I could go and do that, but I don’t want to. We’re trying to do something cultural.

The whole point of Citizen:Citizen is that you could take our object and put it in one of those giftware companies. It could exist there. But then it would be a really different object. I’ve provided a different lens through which you look at it. When you place the Citizen:Citizen lens over something, it hopefully illuminates new ways of seeing the ordinary.

There’s nothing more poetic than when you see the ordinary afresh. Whether it be through a wonderful teacher at school, or through your own personal development. Or through art, maybe something moves you. Or through culture. You go to another country and suddenly you realize a lot more about your own country when you come home. You have these moments of mild enlightenment.

What we’re trying to do with our objects is to create that paradigm shift.

Can you tell us about any new objects that will be coming out?

I’ve just been speaking to a guy called Tomas Kral. He’s taking these very standard glass objects, such as ketchup bottles and jam jars, and re-valuing them through manipulations like etching and cutting. He’s taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary. It’s also very interesting from a recycling standpoint.

Going back to the conversation of American vs. European design, what do you think is going on there?

There’s a huge gap. And it is not being filled and it is not being supported and it is not being sponsored. With all the will in the world, 100 underpaid creatives in Brooklyn are not necessarily going to change that. Change has got to be systemic and it has got to come from within the institutions. The concept of design has to be broadened and the whole discourse about design has to open up.

In many ways, there’s been a lot more design going on here in the US. It’s just very commercial. It’s going on within Apple and Gap and Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn. And the Genentechs of this area, all the genetic engineering companies are incredibly design-heavy. All the Silicon Valley companies are incredibly design-heavy.

If you look to the last revolution, which was the industrial revolution in Northern Europe circa 1800, then a comporably-scaled revolution is taking place 20 miles south of here [San Francisco]. Design is often linked with huge cultural shifts. If you look at design in Victorian times, it was because of new technologies: steam power, the smelting of steel, new materials which became available, new distribution systems…

Design does not sit like a kind of crust on top of culture. It’s deeply embedded. When we get these huge shifts, then we’ll get huge shifts in design. The next huge shift is an understanding of what sustainability is. Tha
t’s a great opportunity. But government needs to fund it. They can give tax breaks, or they can institutionalize it, or they can put it out to private contract. If they can invent the atomic bomb, then they can do new power systems. I look at design in this much bigger place.

Exit9
Manhattan: 64 Avenue A
Brooklyn: 127 Smith St.
www.shopexit9.com

Do you have any advice for designers trying to wholesale a new product they have developed? How should they approach you?

If the product is something hand stitched or hand made, it has to really stand out. The craft market has its own place. In our store, if it looks hand made, the customer thinks, “I could make this at home.” It’s not like they WILL go home and make it, but since they think they could, they won’t buy it.

As far as approaching me, email is best. Send all the information to submit[at]exit9.com. Walking in off the street works, if I happen to be here. It’s better if you call first and set up an appointment.

What tips can you give young designers about presenting their work?

Bring samples of a real, actual product. If it’s a prototype, it needs to be very good quality. Be totally solid about what the prices are going to be, wholesale and retail. And have all the information on a piece of paper that you can leave behind for me. I may not order right away, but if you leave something with me I can file it and may order in a few months

Another thing to keep in mind when approaching stores is territory. Stores don’t want to all have the same thing, so don’t just go down the block and stop in every place. Be choosy. Pick the store that you think is the best fit and approach them first.

When did you open the store, and how did it start?

I started Exit9 in the village in ‘95. It was a series of fortunate events. I came into exactly enough money to open a store, and a space was for rent just around the corner from my apartment at the time. Before opening the store I had a clock business, designing clocks and selling them to stores. So I filled my store with clocks and other things I’d made. Eventually I got into selling other people’s designs. We opened the Brooklyn store two years ago.

Do you still sell things which you’ve made?

No, I don’t have time anymore… There are so many other people out there that are so great at their craft.

How do you do your buying?

75% of it happens at trade shows. We go to the big gift fair at the Javitz. The other 25% comes from people who contact us and people who come in off the street and show us their products.

What do you look for in new products these days?

I really like things with more than one function. We have a ring that is also a bottle opener, which is fantastic. It shows that the artist is thinking and innovating.

What is your favorite object in the store right now?

This “I Tap N Y” reusable water bottle. Also, there’s this ashtray. It says, “Jesus hates it when you smoke.” The designer is a guy who came in off the street and approached us. We’ve been selling it for 8 or 9 years now. It’s pretty rare for a product to have that long of a staying power.

Who is your typical customer?

It’s different between the two stores. In the Village, it’s 18-30, single, hip artists. In the Brooklyn store, it’s 25-50, a more established crowd, people who own property in the area, and moms with strollers.

Have you noticed any recent trends in terms of what people are buying?

There was a huge micro-trend with these crystal sparkling bouncy balls. A few of the kids brought them to school and everyone had to have them. We’ve also done really well with kitschy items. You can buy pretty much anything in this neighborhood, except for the funny stuff. Novelty breath sprays are very popular, people in the neighborhood love them. Another trend we’ve noticed is that there are lots of European tourists in the store. They’re buying everything up because it’s cheap here.

Character
19 Prince Street
New York, NY
212.274.1966
www.characternyc.com

When did Character open, and how did it start?

Character started in 1999. It was at that time that all the European character work was coming out. We were bringing things over from Belgium- Tintin, Astrix, The Little Prince, I’m sure you remember. The current owner bought the store in 2004, and wanted to put a different spin on it. At that point the store became much more design oriented. We focused on up and coming designers, current events, and really the celebration of fantastic ideas. It became much less about the traditional definition of a character, and more about the character of an , its personality, the story of how it came to be. I think the word character is the one thing which really connects the store- from the products we carry to the staff and designers. There’s nothing that cant be seen or done here.

What do you look for when you bringing new product into the store?

We don’t like to put limits on what product we bring in, it just has to be good. Obviously, as you see, we have a little bit of everything. You can find anything from a baby gift to a bad ass necklace. We look for products that aren’t trend driven, but rather unique and creative, that catches peoples eyes – conversation pieces. Our customers tend to be more interested in the intellectual pieces, as well as the stories of the designers behind them. Obliviously if a product doesn’t work with the clientèle, I can’t do anything about it, but we’re always looking for work with a story- objects that people can connect to.

Do you have a typical customer?

There are a wide variety of people that come into the store. The clients vary depending on who’s working, the music, the weather, the specific time of day – I’m generalizing – but our product range is so vast you can’t really typify a customer.

For example, I know that my older clientèle comes in the early morning, on Saturday we’re going to be rocking out playing music and giving out free condoms, and if there is going to be a little granny in the store on Sunday, well I certainly still don’t want to have bowls of condoms out. All three of us that work here, Adam, Tyler, and myself all have a very different personalities, and as a result, we draw in very different customers.

You’ve talked about connecting people in the store to the staff, as well as products, do you think it is important for the customer to be able to connect to the designer behind the piece?

I think it’s critical for us to be able to present the designer as well as know their work. This is especially true with the local designers. Customers love it when you can tell them the product there buying was made by someone based in Brooklyn. The locality makes the work much more tangible.

Have you noticed any current buying trends?

Summer is a very interesting time because we have a lot of tourists. This year its been people from Mexico and California, less Europeans. The trends change with the demographic. In the last three weeks we’ve sold a lot of jewelry and mirrors. The Harry Allen mirrors in particular are doing particularly well.

How does display and packaging of a product affect the sales?

The placement of a product in the store is extremely important, and was a big part of my professional career in merchandising. When people first walk into the store, especially if it’s empty, they’re going to be a little trepidacious. We like to place relaxing, inviting items near the front of the store – work which is easy to grasp and will draw people further in. I also like to create narrative with some of the smaller items, place them in glass cases, use putty to stand the product up, it makes them more visually engaging.

What is your favorite object in the store and why?

I have the pieces that I’ve always loved, and had for a while. I love the Harry Allen mirrors, but every product in here is really a favorite of mine, I wouldn’t keep ordering it, or work on selling it, if I didn’t believe it was great. I’m very selective about what we carry, simply because if I’m not passionate about an object, I certainly can’t sell it.