DesignSTL March/April 2021

IT’S BEEN ALMOST a year since I last closed an issue of Design STL from the office. These days, my living room is my office. My chair is a reupholstered French fauteuil. My desk is a vintage folding table designed by George Nelson that I share every other week with my 12-year-old son when he’s learning from home. Last March, as the magazine’s Brentwood office was abruptly vacated, none of us had any inkling that almost 12 months later we’d still be logging in from home, our bedrooms, our converted linen closets. The power of technology made the transition more seamless than expected. As days turned into weeks and then into months, we grew accustomed to talking by way of Slack; editing proofs downloaded from Google Drive; and watching as…

CONNECT livvyandneva.com When Keita Turner visited her late grandmother’s home in Georgia a few years ago, she found the sewing room, brimming with fabrics and half-finished projects, just as her grandmother had left it. Among the textiles that Turner saved that day was a vintage handkerchief whose riot of geometric patterns would later inspire the look of her Karachi pillow, a lively paisley print model in the designer’s pillow line, Livvy & Neva. The collection, which launched last year, is named after Turner’s great-grandmothers Olivia and Geneva. Turner’s called on the skills she acquired during her career in fashion to mix daring color schemes and patterns. “The colors and the movement are almost surreal,” she says. “I went all out and placed kerchiefs with an abundance of pattern on an…

1 UNION STUDIO Mary Beth Bussen and Sarah Kelley were drawn to the neighborhood’s community feel when searching for a location to hold Union Studio’s second storefront. “Part of the beauty of the space is seeing the work of individual artists coming together,” says Bussen. At Union Studio, shoppers will find jewelry, housewares, and fine art handmade by more than 120 local artisans. The shop’s name reflects that special union between artisans and the people who support them: “Yes, we sell beautiful work,” Bussen says, “but we also try to build community.” 8137 Big Bend stlunionstudio.com 2 DHARMA + DWELL At Dharma + Dwell, “all the items are refillable, reusable, or package-free,” says owner Jordan Blackhurst, who loves helping St. Louisans make conscious decisions that guide them toward a more…

IF YOU FOLLOW Andrea Jarrett on Instagram, you’re familiar with her minimalist aesthetic. You know that she favors chunky knits, that she trims her own face- framing French girl-style fringe. Like many influencers, Jarrett documents these, and other, details of her wardrobe— a thrifted top here, a cotton flax dress there—photographed against the exposed brick background of her Tower Grove East living room. Her look, she discovered last year, after a deep dive into Pinterest, can be described as “artsy, academic, Parisian.” “There’s a subcategory of the academic look that I [also] fall under: dark academia with deep plaids and a lot of black,” she says. But when Jarrett isn’t engaging with her 15,000 Instagram followers, she’s entertaining an entirely different audience as a violinist for the St. Louis Symphony…

SOFT AND SOPHISTICATED, velvet is beloved, but its appeal is hardly new. The fabric—the product of a weaving technique that creates a dense plush pile over a base cloth—dates back to at least 7th century Asia, where velvet was first woven of silk. Eventually velvet was brought to Europe, most notably Italy, becoming popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. “At the time, velvet was mostly used for clothing and ceremonial textiles by the nobility and the church because of its expense,” says Genny Cortinovis, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Saint Louis Art Museum, “but enhanced weaving technology in the 17th and 18th centuries helped usher in a new phase for the fabric, lowering its production cost and making it more…

IF YOU THINK running errands in a mask is a drag, imagine trying to sing in one. For costume designer Robin McGee, the challenge of creating a mask that would accommodate a singer’s unique needs was right up her alley. Shakespeare wrote Venus and Adonis during the pandemic of 1592. McGee’s COVID-19 masterwork is a little different but answers the call, “What can we do?” she says. In the early days of COVID-19, McGee and business partner Jeff Whiting got a contract to make hospital gowns and transformed Whiting’s rehearsal space into a PPE factory. The Broadway Relief Project, a coalition of costume makers who saw their livelihoods suffer greatly as a result of pandemic closures, got to work sewing protective gear. McGee is based in New York City and…