A Playroom, Complete With Furnishings
MY relationship with Conran’s dates back 20 years. I, a newlywed and graduate student, moved into a one-bedroom on East 95th Street. My husband and I furnished our nest with the store’s good-looking, fairly sturdy, affordable designs made of modern materials like blond wood, melamine and industrial steel.
My favorite purchase was a free-standing black grid-like wooden bookcase with open shelves (it came with a matching rectangular clock). It was the centerpiece of our living room.
Over the next two decades, much changed. We upgraded to a two-bedroom in the Public School 6 district; Ikea arrived, competing with the likes of Pottery Barn for style-conscious consumers. Conran’s went down the tubes, as did my marriage. The bookcase buckled under the weight of too many books, but the clock has kept on ticking, a reminder of Conran’s evergreen appeal.
In late 1999, the Terence Conran Shop, now called the Conran Shop, opened in Bridgemarket, a sparkling two-level glass and steel pavilion on First Avenue between 59th and 60th Streets. It sells an eclectic mix of classic minimalist and more-decorative contemporary furniture, as well as ordinary and iconoclastic home items by a range of designers, Mr. Conran, now 71, included.
The inventory includes his Aspen Sofa, a low powder-blue affair with contoured edges and a tubular chrome base ($2,150), which, though designed in 2003, calls to mind a 60’s Pan Am V.I.P. lounge; Philippe Starck’s collapsible stroller in aluminum and nylon mesh for Maclaren ($300), a sophisticated alternative for moms who can’t bear another teddy-bear cushion and plastic frame; Ducati’s stunning red and silver pen ($185), the perfect writing implement for anyone who doesn’t lose pens; gold or silver Lurex sponges to add glitz to the kitchen sink ($3); and pushpins shaped like flies ($18 for a set of 24), which, when tacked to a bulletin board, make for a witty visual pun: a fly on the wall.
There are predictable pluckings of mid-century Modern icons like an Eames lounge and ottoman ($3,125), so widely available they appear hackneyed, but the store has much in the way of fresh-looking designs — eccentric, quixotic and cheeky — like a Chris Kabel Shady Lace Parasol ($350), a green patio umbrella cut in a trompe l’oeil foliage pattern.
Most of the merchandise is openly displayed, allowing customers to touch and test. The staff encourages play. When I picked up a chartreuse fluorescent-lighted sword labeled Luke Skywalker’s Light Sabre ($119) and pushed a button on the handle, a loud whooshing sound made me jump.
“What, you’ve never played before?” a saleswoman asked, grabbing a strawberry pink saber and challenging me to a duel. I declined, my fencing skills being nil, but wondered aloud if the sword would make a good birthday present for my 8-year-old nephew. “Nah,’’ the saleswoman said. “The kids swing them around and break stuff. We mostly sell them to men in their 30’s.’’
IN the 1960’s, Mr. Conran hatched the revolutionary idea of bringing inexpensive modern design to the masses when he opened Habitat, a furniture and housewares shop in London. The Habitat chain, multiplying throughout Britain and France, reached the United States in 1977 but, for licensing reasons, was called Conran’s. In its late 80’s heyday, the chain had 15 stores on these shores; by 1994, the overexpanded company was bankrupt.
Given its legendary name, I assumed a reincarnated Conran’s would be teeming with shoppers, erstwhile, at the very least. But on several recent visits, I found the cavernous space practically empty. Its location, beneath the grimy underbelly of the Queensboro Bridge, is unwelcoming for foot traffic, so the store relies on destination shoppers — those already in the know: architects, designers and Dwell subscribers.
The shop may also be a victim of its early success. One block north is a towering Bed Bath & Beyond, where customers pushing carts, piled with sleek brushed aluminum Brabantia trash cans, collide at the cash registers. Today’s overabundance of comely housewares at competitive prices — Mr. Conran’s brainchild — has cost him his singularity. His Modernist aesthetic and democratic design ethos are now so commonplace that there is no novelty in buying a sexily contoured polycarbonate pencil sharpener.
