Plywood, not sugarplums, have been dancing in Claire McKinney’s and Sophie Andes-Gascon’s heads. In the lead up to the holidays the SC103 designers have been readying their first store, at 25 Henry Street in lower Manhattan, and their involvement has gone beyond window dressing. With help from friends and family, they’ve been knocking down walls, painting, staining wood, and generally getting their hands dirty.
“Claire and I,” joked Andes-Gascon, “were like, they should have an HGTV show about us, if only we liked being in front of the camera.” Having found the space on Craigslist, the two signed the lease on November 1. Opening day is December 12, which means it took them just 41 days to go from 0 to 60. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Having a storefront has long been on the friends’ wishlist in a crazy-dream-that-was-unlikely-to-come-true kind of way. Yet looking back, the designers have paved the way for Henry Street through the pop-ups they hosted in their work spaces, first on John Street in FiDi and more recently at Beard Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn. “We just really loved the experience of getting to know customers and inviting people into our space and having that face-to-face,” said McKinney. Added to that, said Andes-Gascon, “we love creating little worlds and decorating spaces.”
The new shop is long and rectangular, extending back from a front window to a changing room and kiosk above which is an attic nook that was revealed when a false front was taken down. Along the walls are modular units that frame SC103 designs and found objects. When McKinney’s father, an architect who did the renderings, saw the plans come to life, Andes-Gascon recounted, “he described it as the inside of a jewelry box, which makes me think of the twirling figurine inside. When inside the store,” she continued, “I feel shrunken to figurine size, there’s things we get to look up at. There’s some part of it that feels like we’re down a tunnel, over the river and through the woods.”
At the same time, the designers are finding Two Bridges—the neighborhood the store is in—to be very collegial and community oriented. Friends are running restaurants nearby, galleries are moving in, and they were able to find almost everything they needed, from lumber to wood stain, within a few blocks. While I was visiting the yet-to-be-opened space, passersby eagerly stopped to look in the window. All of this brought back memories of NoLita in the 2000s when Jane Mayle and A Détacher’s Mona Kowalska were retail pioneers there.
The small scale of the store makes the shopping experience feel personal while also magnifying the feeling of discovery. “We don’t really know what the space will look like in a month or two,” noted Andes-Gascon. “I think it’ll just be different every time [people] visit.” As with the brand’s past studio sales, one-offs will be for sale alongside brand staples, which include woven leather bags, patchworked pieces, and slip-on pants. “Seeing what people are gravitating towards in the store without having to take the risk of sending that whole style into production,” is one of the plusses of having a storefront,” McKinney said, as is “being able to make something and just put it right out day of…. We like to actually experience people experiencing our world and our stuff.”
Opening at 25 Henry Street not only expands SC103’s physical footprint, it will take the designers public in a way they haven’t been before. “It definitely feels like we’re exposing ourselves; we’ve always just invited people into our safe spaces,” said Andes-Gascon. Certainly the friends’ excitement is tinged with a touch of nerves, yet hope and belief in the future is implied in this big step forward. McKinney sees 25 Henry as one more step toward “carving our own path and staying really involved in the process.” That personal hands-on touch is what retail and fashion truly need.
SC103 is located at 25 Henry Street, New York 10002. December store hours are Friday–Sunday, 12–7 p.m. (Opening times will change seasonally, updates will be posted on the brand’s website and Instagram.)
