With its pitched walls, strange angles and cramped corners, Mrs. Robertson, a new design shop in Fort Greene, feels cozy as an attic. It’s appropriate, then, that the shop’s co-owner, the stylist Hilary Robertson, tries to channel an imaginary garret-dwelling bohemian aunt when buying for the store. “Our aesthetic is as eclectic as her travels. I think we choose things because they conjure her world,” Robertson says.
Eclectic may be a bit of an overburdened term in the age of high/low, but it’s an apt descriptor for Mrs. Robertson, where a threadbare antique evening gown hangs near a midcentury modular candelabrum by the German designer Fritz Nagel; a tiny, delicately beaded evening bag sits in proximity to a massive, rough-hewn ceramic urn; and an Art Deco mirrored dressing table could be used to display a hand-carved wooden animal sculpture by the contemporary designer Matt Austin.
“There’s such a mix of things in here from both of us,” says the jewelry designer Gabriela de la Vega, Robertson’s friend and the shop’s co-owner, who also owns a namesake clothing and jewelry boutique next door. (The two stores are connected through a doorway.) Some merchandise originates as inspiration pieces for de la Vega’s creations; some Robertson buys, but never uses, for photo shoots she styles. Both women are inveterate collectors — flea market fiends, and connoisseurs of what seems like every junkyard and antique mall in upstate New York. “I will stop at any place on the side of the road that has a bucket in the yard,” de la Vega jokes.
Though their tastes sometimes differ (de la Vega is more drawn to the feminine, and Robertson more to the masculine), both are devotees of the old, discarded, and beaten up. “What we like is patina and distress — that’s the appeal,” Robertson says, picking up a pair of sculptural brass Ben Seibel bookends, whose finish shows some wear. “I’m sure a purist wouldn’t necessarily want these particular ones, because they’re all oxidized. But actually that makes me like them more.”
Mrs. Robertson, 88 South Portland Avenue, Brooklyn; (718) 858-1152; mrsrobertsonstore.com. Open Tuesday through Sunday, 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
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