Up-and-coming designers who need to work with employees and clients might require multiple spaces: a home, a studio, a showroom, maybe even a place to host larger events.
When Meredith Stoecklein, 39, the founder of the New York-based bridal and fashion brand Lein, started looking for her next Manhattan apartment in 2023, she thought she could blend all these functions in a single space.
Previously, she had rented an apartment in TriBeCa and a studio in the garment district, but during the pandemic she let the leases expire as she escaped to Sun Valley, Idaho. When she began planning her return to New York, “I spent months looking for a place that was leased residential and commercial,” she said. “The issue was: How do I make it feel like a studio space and not have clients feel like they’re walking into my apartment?”
She landed in a sun-filled loft with high ceilings in SoHo, which she rented for $7,700 a month that October. It’s 1,500 square feet were a lot for New York, but too little for everything she wanted to accomplish.
“I wanted clients to feel like they’re stepping into the world of Lein,” Ms. Stoecklein said. “For the most part, our in-person appointments are with brides, and they’re bringing their mothers, their mothers-in-law and their best friends, so I wanted to have a very serene space.”
Ms. Stoecklein also has two employees who work alongside her most days. She needed places to store and show dresses. And she wanted to host trunk shows and celebratory dinners for larger groups.
For help designing a transformable apartment and studio, she got in touch with Abigail Shea, the founder of Studio Eastman, an interior design firm in Portland, Maine, that she’d seen online.
“We do a lot of raw edges with silk wool or silk organza, and little details that feel very feminine but also have an organic, natural quality to them,” Ms. Stoecklein said. “I felt super connected to Abigail because she also loves layering textures and natural elements.”
Eager to help, Ms. Shea flew to New York to start designing the space. Together, they designed the loft with a few different zones and changeable components.
For a sleeping space, they installed a Murphy bed in one corner and wrapped it with heavy linen curtains on tracks. When the bed is open for sleeping, the curtains hang at the edges of the mattress to give it the feel of a canopy bed. When the bed is closed, the unit looks like a handsome cabinet and the space becomes a fitting room.
Just beyond the curtains, they designed a living room that serves as a place for brides to model dresses for family and friends to gather. “We wanted furniture with seats high enough that grandmothers could sit in them, and get out of them,” Ms. Shea said.
She found a curved vintage sofa with a seat height of almost 19 inches — “more than enough,” she said — and a big comfortable wing chair, both of which she had reupholstered and placed near an antique full-length folding mirror. Behind this seating area, a live-edge wood desk against the windows gives Ms. Stoecklein a place to work.
Ms. Shea also devised walnut clothes-hanging rods that are suspended from the ceiling on hooks, near wardrobes holding garments and fabric samples. Most of the time, the rods are hung with Ms. Stoecklein’s creations, but they can also be taken down to make more space for events.
Once a month or so, she takes them down and brings out two long folding tables and benches to host events. “We’ll do a dinner party or a cocktail event,” she said. “We host all of our press previews. When a new collection comes out, we host editors and stylists in the space.”
She also opens the studio for monthly trunk shows, inviting casual visits rather than requiring appointments. On those days, she uses a folding screen to create a second changing area.
To make the kitchen — which is in a nook near the entrance door — disappear, they hung another floor-to-ceiling curtain that completely conceals it. A circular black marble table sits just outside the kitchen.
“We needed to give Meredith a place to eat,” Ms. Shea said. “But it also functions as a foyer table, and she can put beautiful florals on it.” And it works as a meeting table for Ms. Stoecklein and her employees.
To finish off the space, Ms. Shea and Ms. Stoecklein brought in more texture with weathered wood tables and benches, cafe curtains made from chiffon for the windows and art including a drawing by Kate McDuffie in an oversized black walnut frame and easel. The project was complete last December for a total cost of about $75,000.
Having a single space that does everything Ms. Stoecklein needs provides simplicity while cutting down on expenses and eliminating commutes. There’s just one problem, she said: “I love it so much I never want to leave.”
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