In Christophe Pourny’s Industry City studio and storefront, in Brooklyn, artisan home goods from France mingle alongside cans of wood stain. In the front, there are pairs of ultra-cozy charentaise slippers, colorful soaps from Marseilles, and hand-mixed furniture tonics. Walk to the back, there’s a plastic curtain that leads to a studio space where you’ll find craftsmen in the process of restoring and elevating all sorts of furniture. Spend 15 minutes there and you’ll begin to wonder why there aren’t more storefronts where you can both interact with a storied form of craftsmanship and also buy a stylish little sun hat that you can wear to your trip to Deauville this summer.
For Pourny, mixing French home-goods staples with his everyday work as a furniture restorer makes perfect sense. As a restorer, he works with high-quality materials. He wants his work to last, be passed down, transform a space. When it came time to open his storefront in Brooklyn, he had the same attitude: giving his customers access to high-quality items that have longevity. “I wanted people to come by and find these things only here,” he says.
