Last week, I found myself in the famous bedroom shopping scene in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. Except instead of boxes of frilly shoes and bright ball gowns on hangers, I was surrounded by colorful miniskirts, silk golden shorts, buttoned-up frocks, and the signature La Réunion Studio patchwork dresses that first put Brooklyn designer Sarah Nsikak, our host, on the map.
To celebrate the launch of La Réunion’s official foray into homewares, Nsikak brought a group of friends together for the best kind of party: a dress-up party. Nsikak’s work has strayed from fashion into homewares before—whether through challah covers for Judaica line Hayom, small batches of tea towels, and custom curtains—but these were typically one-off expressions of her art practice, rather than a more formal offering. As La Réunion continues to accept commissions (like aprons for staff at an in-the-works-restaurant), this fall, La Réunion will also launch a homewares collection online and in person at cult-favorite boutique Outline in Boerum Hill.
La Réunion Studio launched in 2020 and it took off fast—an Instagram post of the first patchwork dress went viral, leading to demand Nsikak couldn’t initially keep up with, and a spot in an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute (part of “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion” in 2021). With the endless cycle of waste the fashion industry creates in mind, Nsikak acquires textiles at live auctions and antique markets, while also sourcing deadstock from designer friends like Ilana Kohn and Mara Hoffman who “see the value in us having them, and creating less of a carbon footprint.” For custom pieces, she often incorporates family heirlooms like childhood clothing or fabric that customers have held onto.
The colorways of Nsikak’s homewares lean towards the muted and worn-in, owing in part to her use of vintage textiles both as part of her practice, and for inspiration. (She cites Gee’s Bend Quilts as being “at the forefront of my mind when it comes to patchwork.”) Growing up a first-generation American in the quiet suburbs of Oklahoma City with Nigerian parents in a predominantly white town, Nsikak was first exposed to quilts in the homes of her classmates and was taught to sew at a young age by her grandmother, Hannah Etim. “She was a seamstress in her village which is a very esteemed profession [in Nigeria],” Nsikak explains. The move towards designing homewares comes from these woven histories of her family—blending both her Nigerian heritage and the Americana she discovered in her youth—Nsikak’s singular perspective is unapologetically political and ecological on the inside, while delicate, feminine, and imbued with the gentleness of a new mother (she has an almost two-year-old daughter) on the outside.
But back to the dress-up party: Upon entering the home of design studio founder Anna Polonsky and artist-restauranteur Fernando Aciar—and walking past a figurative tapestry that the couple commissioned from Nsikak in 2020 based on their practice of hosting and the place meditation had in their lives—guests were ushered upstairs to Anna’s bedroom, where this scene unfolded. Everyone mixed, matched, and passed pieces back and forth. “I wanted to create a full universe,” Nsikak explained on how she decided to dress guests for the homewares launch. “It felt right to inject the fashion in an unprecious, relaxed way.” Slowly, Nsikak’s group of creative New York women made their way downstairs. Painter Colleen Herman in pink gingham, photographer Elevine Berge in striped pants, jewelry designer Ope Omojola in a sporty collared tunic with matching gold skirt, and the artist herself in denim pants and a spearmint shirt with pearly edges—all greeted by a floor entirely outfitted in the homewares pieces.
In the living room, curtains in yellows, pinks, and reds reminiscent of early autumn hung above a divan dressed with striped lumbar and couch pillows which gallerist Alex Tieghi-Walker would later cover himself with, as his version of being dressed in Le Réunion clothing. Chairs sat draped with light plaid chair cushions with ribbons to tie to the legs, and the centerpiece, a giant quilt in the shape of a dress, was spread across the floor like a more feminine version of one of those bear rugs that you’re never quite sure whether you can step on or not.
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Moving to the kitchen, a spread of crudités with dips and tiny sandwiches prepared by Jhosiah Huerta of Dimes Times was served in Aciar’s ceramics, atop a checkered tablecloth from the homewares collection in a cool, muted colorway. Alongside the tablecloths, the offering includes pot holders, linen napkins, and appliqué tea towels influenced by Asafo flags. “Traditional Asafo flags were made in Ghana as storytelling pieces and now a lot of collectors have them as relics.” Rather than reinterpreting them literally, Nsikak referenced them as “more of a subtle nod, nostalgic of a certain era of craftsmanship.”
Missing from the party display, however, were her signature patchwork lamps. Nsikak first made a set for Current Cassis’s new tasting room in upstate New York, but a wider selection is currently on display at Tangerine Brooklyn in Williamsburg. Inspired by Isamu Noguchi, the lights artfully meld function and form. “My trajectory [as a homewares designer] will be what I can explore within the world of function,” Nsikak notes. “How can I make something out of the immigrant survival mentality that my parents had? Why would I get a painting when I could buy this china set that looks beautiful, and you can actually use?”
