shop & compare: john derian

John Derian's decoupage plates

Inside John Derian Company Inc in the East Village,
there are curious objects everywhere you look.

I love how Bergdorf Goodman recreated John Derian's signature aesthetic on the 7th floor last Tuesday to showcase the decoupage designer's debut furniture collection. So much so that I wanted to pay a visit to Derian's East Village shops, and study his smaller design objects more closely. He has two shops right next store to each other on 2nd Street, between Bowery and 2nd Avenue.

If you are shopping for one of Derian's decoupage designs, there is certainly no shortage of selection at his store. Wow! The density of the objects displayed is heady. The mix of objects is pleasing too: Astier de Villatte terracotta slip-glazed pottery (modern yet with a 19th century quality) are displayed alongside "finger sponges" and other natural objects that look more like scientific curiosities than things you can purchase. But purchase them, you can. I especially love the wall of "mushroom consoles" made by Mark St. Clair near the back of the store on the left.

John Derian's retail design and unique aesthetic seems to borrow from Charles Wilson Peale's ideas about museum displays (he was a naturalist and a painter; see this painting). When I browse through Derian's store, I feel like I am in a museum of ethnography from the late 19th century. There is a curious mix of curious objects excavated from times past, displayed in wood-frame glass vitrines where the glass has melted a bit. There is an overwhelming amount of objects to explore and the room can start to close in on you, but it is worth the time spent discovering.