Have you ever walked into a shop and been totally transported to another place? I know it sounds cheesy. Transported you say? Come on. It’s a shop. Well, there are shops and there are SHOPS.
The first time I walked into MacKenzie~Childs, a home shop on W 57th street in Manhattan, I remember thinking, Oh, I’ll be coming back here.

A cross between Robinson Crusoe’s Treehouse and Alice in Wonderland’s Mad Hatter Tea party, except more whacked out. In a good way.

As soon as you walk in the door, you are swept up into something out of a child’s fairy tale but not so pink and sparkly. All the regular things that you would normally find in a house were there. Tables, chairs couches, chests, tea cups & saucers, candlesticks, pillows, lamps and chickens in a coop. Ah, yes, I said chickens in a coop. Now from what I remember, they were exotic chickens in a hand painted, finely-made coop. On a pedestal.

Hand painted is what MacKenzie~Childs is all about. Almost everything is hand painted in a mosaic of pattern and color, texture and light, modern and mumsy. If it is not painted, it is upholstered in vibrant mixes of color and over-the-top detailing of tassels and cord. A menagerie of ceramic animals peek out their little noses from the bases of tables, chests and chairs. Pastoral scenes are stretched across the bowed front of Bombay chests.

Armoires open up into fully operational mini-kitchens-perfect for the New York apartment.  Fanciful fish are used as the slats on the back of chairs. Candlesticks, teapots, serving platters et al, are embellished within an inch of their still-lives.
You have to see it to believe it. In the last several years, MacKenzie~Childs has branched out into some higher end malls.  Not quite the same overwhelming aesthetic as their flagship store in NYC, which is to be expected, yet, still worth the visit. They also have a website and catalog that I love to flip through.

I returned to the store numerous times on weekend walk-abouts and made it a destination with visitors. I never bought a thing at that NY store.

Yes, I am one of THOSE, customers. I could never figure out what I “needed”. It was pretty pricey and I couldn’t imagine just having “A” piece. It seemed like you needed lots of it to create the drama. But I was wrong.

When they opened up a shop in Atlanta I finally bought some MacKenzie~Childs. I bought knobs and handles for my closet.  As many New Yorkers and transplanted New Yorkers ( like me) know, a large closet is the closest thing to Nirvana. I happen to have a very small master bedroom with a huge walk in closet. I don’t have any useful chest of drawers in my room because – everything is in my closet. I am blessed. A chorus of angels sing when I open the door…LAAAAAAAAA!

I digress. So, like I said, I bought some knobs. Sounds lame, I know. But think about it, what place do you wake up and see every morning. What else could dress up boring, sterile, white melamine drawers and doors? Hand painted, swirly, checkered, flowered knobs- that’s what. At $22 a pop, pricey, yes. I could have had burnished, pewter stainless steel, domed knobs for a buck-fifty, but that would not be any fun.

There are a lot of decorator items that I love that are not really my style or would not fit in with my decor. Sometimes because of price or because it is just too over the top, I have to visit objects of my affection in their natural retail habitat. If I really love an item, I make a mental note and sooner or later it usually surfaces in an A-HA! moment of how I can get just a taste of it in my home.

Now, everytime I open my closet…. LAAAAAAA!…I remember that little shop in New York and how much fun I had looking at everything, like a kid in a candy shop. I wanted piece and now I have some.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 9:24 am and is filed under daily diva. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.