I have never been big into online shopping, but even if I were, the new PINKYS Iron Doors flagship in Los Angeles, coming courtesy of interior design sensation Jeremiah Brent, would be enough to redeem me. Open to all by appointment only, this vibrant, soulful furniture playground welcomes anyone from seasoned — or amateur — architects and designers searching for "the missing" element to close their projects to DIY decorators, and even people looking for fresh inspiration to bring into their homes.
The producer of high-end, creatively stylish iron doors and windows, since 1978 PINKYS has been at the forefront of ironwork innovation, continually rejecting the preconceptions about what these fixtures are meant to look like to manifest a much more personal, imaginative, and irreverent understanding of design. At first glance, the brand's new location might seem yet another of the best Los Angeles furniture stores. Still, despite putting its signature home additions at the center, its mission is much broader.
An invitation to "immerse yourself into the world of craftsmanship", the space, which was unveiled earlier this fall, strives to offer "the opportunity to really envision what living with the product is like," Brent tells me. Beautifully capturing the house's sculptural iron windows, doors, and architectural elements in use within a 4,600-square-foot, loft apartment context, the flagship shies away from the unnaturally static essence of classic showrooms.
Located within the brand's production facility in Vernon, the industrial capital of downtown Los Angeles, the project sews the gap between the manufacturing, the installation, and the experience of its designs thanks to its 'lived-in' atmosphere. It does so by presenting them alongside a curated selection of plush-yet-spirited furniture and home accessories whose desert-inspired earthiness and 1970s-informed, groovy aesthetic accentuates their sophisticated linearity.
Using PINKYS products for what they do best, or delineating living spaces in a quintessentially Californian, graced-by-the-sun style, Jeremiah Brent developed a 'glass box' gallery within which these fixtures are the real showstoppers. Driven by a desire to continually design "beyond the bounds of convention", the Queer Eye star and PINKYS' names have featured together in many of Jeremiah Brent Design projects before. These include the Bond-esque, monochromatic Hollywood HQ of legendary film and TV producer Ryan Murphy, the 1925 Hancock Park Tudor home he revamped together with partner Nate Berkus, and their co-led TLC show, Nate & Jeremiah by Design. Still, for Brent and the manufacturer, the flagship represents a whole new 'first', and seals an even deeper chapter in their partnership.
"We've spent years showcasing PINKYS products throughout our projects," says the designer. "Their work always feels like the finishing touch to the architecture: something fresh and bespoke yet entirely timeless." Uniting the two design studios, adds Brent, is their mutual commitment to "the celebration of personalization and lasting design." With its interactive visitor experience, the showroom brings these principles to the fore, not only allowing everyone to compare different solutions, but also granting them a taste of what it would be like to live with them; whether in a living room, an office space, a lounge, or a storage room.
Giving industrial interior design a glamorous twist, with spherical Art Deco design pendant lighting, XL modular sofas, whimsical wooden accents, and draped-in-champagne-curtains walls, the expansive store is a tale of brilliantly executed contrasts. "We focused on balancing the urban landscape with rich colors and soft silhouettes to make the industrial environment feel approachable," Brent says. Leveraging "thoughtful vignettes that you'd, typically, only find in residential developments," adds the designer, the destination puts the human side of design back into the shopping experience. Here, customers are prompted to take a closer look at, touch, and think about what each homeware buy would add to their domestic environment; what mood or energy this would bring into it, even.
Of course, this strikingly sensory way of browsing iron doors and windows wouldn't have been possible without PINKYS' creations, and the opening of the flagship served the house the ideal opportunity to debut a brand new line, the California Collection. A tangible reinterpretation of the Golden State's "diverse and awe-inspiring scenery", the drop bears a retro-pop, pastel color scheme, disrupting the monochrome nature of the options traditionally available on the market. Pulling inspiration from the local environment, "from the Pacific Ocean to the desert", the latest PINKYS collection platforms the region's natural beauty, amplifying it in its designs rather than leaving it outside.
Incorporated by Brent into the Vernon flagship, "a space for others to create," as he describes it, these doors and windows are more than functional design fixtures. Much like the PINKYS brand as a whole, they embody the pursuit of the Southern California dream — a mental state of "forever becoming", where people are prompted to "break down walls and create infinite opportunities", and the sun is always shining.
