Lucy Liu's Rocket Dogs
Plus shopping in the 6ème and a creative director’s mouse house.
The most special stop in Paris is an IRL-only music-box store; Strategist senior editor Hilary Reid bought one that plays Chopin. We’ve also got miniature furniture for toy mice, freaky flip-flops, and inexpensive Euro athleticwear. —Simone Kitchens, Winnie Yang, Lauren Ro, Erin Schwartz, and Michael Zhao
Every product is independently selected by editors. If you buy something through our links, New York may earn an affiliate commission.
* Three things on our calendar: Starting this Friday, May 15, and running through May 20, Simone Bodmer-Turner’s 12-piece tableware collection, under her new project, SB-T Studio, will be on show alongside furnishings curated by antiques dealer Christopher Cawley. (109 Thompson Street)
* In Williamsburg, Tangerine’s biannual sidewalk sale runs Saturday, May 16, noon to 4 p.m. (616 Lorimer Street)
* And over in the East Village, hairstylist Teddi Cranford, founder of White Rose Collective, is hosting a mini-souk. Cranford visits Morocco every year, bringing back piles of handwoven rugs, pillows, and poufs; in April, she picked up her biggest haul yet. Next Wednesday, May 20, 5 to 9 p.m. (201 East 2nd Street), she will be selling a variety of textiles along with knitwear from Journal Twelve, hand-dyed robes from Roy G., and an assortment of vintage.
* Senior writer Dominique Pariso will be wearing Eileen Fisher’s crushed silk all summer.
* In Common With’s new Murano lighting collection was made with Venetian glassmaker Laguna-B and includes flush mounts, sconces, pendants, and chandeliers in three glass and four hardware finishes.
* We can’t stop poring over all the details in the miniature house that creative director and Mugwort Mugwort co-founder Jayne Goheen made for her kids’ Maileg mice, so we reached out to find out more about how she put it together: “The frog boots — my daughters have the same Wellipets rain boots — I sourced on miniatures.com, along with a lot of other building supplies like wallpaper and flooring and trim. The other miscellaneous accessories, like the rice cooker, metal fan, and baskets, were sourced from Etsy. There are tons of miniature items there, but I try to keep my sources metal or natural items (not 3-D printed or plastic, of which there are plenty). As an aside, some Maileg mice come with magnets in their hands, and I added magnets to all ours that didn’t already have them. That’s why Maileg metal furniture and accessories are nice — the mice cling to them. So I try to find metal furnishings whenever possible (like the fan).”
As for the Korean najeonchilgi-style armoire and storage bench, I used stock raw-wood dollhouse furniture. I removed ornate details and filled in gaps with wood putty and sanded them down to make them more linear and flat than they would be in real life. Then I painted them black, applied holographic stickers that were cut into tiny pieces and arranged, and finally coated them with resin to give it that lacquer look. The blanket is also a traditional Korean style saekdong blanket that I handmade. I actually made all the blankets and most of the pillows in the house.”
* Flip-flops with an inverted heel (also here and here).
* More flip-flops: Our friend Mary H.K. Choi saw Lucy Liu in Brooklyn wearing Rocket Dog-style platforms.
* A gold mine of sub-$20 vintage athleticwear at U.K. eBay reseller Messina Hembry. Look for the Italian brands — Lotto, Diadora, Fila, Ellesse — and make an offer for an extra 20 to 30 percent off. Erin ordered five items (and is planning to buy more) for about $80, including shipping, and their package arrived tariff-free. (The U.K. tariff rate is 10 percent.)
* Gaijin Paris, the Marais shop (33 Rue Debelleyme) that specializes in Japanese designer vintage, moved a couple of blocks and opened an extension earlier this week in its original location. Strange(r) (20 Rue du Pont au Choux) carries designer labels from beyond Japan, including Iceberg, Alex Mullins, and Damir Doma. Read on for more Paris shopping.
Senior editor Hilary Reid just spent a week in Paris on a family trip to celebrate a big birthday for her mom, which of course included some shopping: “We stayed in the Sixth Arrondissement, which felt fortuitous because almost every shop I’d been saving for my next trip turned out to be there.”
* Our first stop was Antoinette Poisson, whose beautiful printed textiles I’d admired at John Derian for a while. I bought this tablecloth and some matching napkins and admired the great wall of wallpapers.
* Michele Aragon, which was recommended to me by Susan Korn, was filled to the brim with kilim pillows, vegetable-shaped dishes, and some of the most fantastic oyster serving plates I’ve ever seen. Fortuny was opulent even just for window-shopping, and we never made it to Officine Universelle Buly because the lines were long. Soeur felt like the kind of shop that should arrive in New York any day now (I actually overheard a few other Americans in the shop talking about how they’d memorized the online catalogue in preparation for going in Paris), and I bought a deep-blue denim jacket in a dressy, almost capelike cut.
* I made a pilgrimage to Astier de Villatte, where I didn’t buy anything but considered the incense holders.
* I was kind of stunned to discover that Caspari has a boutique in Paris, apparently its only one besides one in Charlottesville, Virginia. I bought some note cards and considered a tulipiere.
* There were a couple of shops that we happened upon that were some of my favorites of the trip. La Tresorie was the perfect cross between a utilitarian kitchenware store and one where you could find a perfectly soft linen tablecloth or pretty ceramic bowl. My husband and I bought a bunch of practical kitchen stuff that we’d had on our list for a while — a ladle, non-plastic tongs, reusable Champagne cork — that was all well made and well priced.
* One of the most special stops was at Atelier d’Autrefois, which is a music- box store in the Third Arrondissement that doesn’t have a website. Every music box in the store is made by the owner, who was there to talk about each. I took home a music box similar to this one that plays Chopin’s ‘Nocturne Op 9 No 2.’”
fantastic article.