PaperCity Magazine

PaperCity Dallas March 2022

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and where to ship it. Bolke has taken measured steps opening The Conservatory in Dallas. A small location opened on the ground floor of Highland Park Village in late 2019, where he shifted the business model to conventional retail, and then a small Conservatory on Two followed. The new space dwarfs the original spots, with 9,000 square feet designed by architecture and design firm Droese Raney, which also designed Forty Five Ten downtown, along with Bolke. Designer collections include The Row, Rosetta Getty, Gabriela Hearst, Brandon Maxwell, Altuzarra, and exclusives such as Courrèges, Alaïa, LaQuan Smith, and Mugler. On the men's side are Berluti, Maison Margiela, Barena Venezia, Ron Dorff, Sunspel, NN07. and U.S. exclusives Tanner Krolle and Câllas Milano. Sidney Garber, Eva Fehren, and Marina B head up fine jewelry; apothecary includes Byredo, Diptyque, D.S. & Durga, and Edward Bess. Chicago designer Alessandra Branca has a pop-up shop with her exuberant Casa Branca collection (through March 18), with many of her goods also sold at The Conservatory's miniature, ground-floor offshoot called Bijoux — predominantly a mixture of gifts and apothecary. Vestiges of the original showroom concept still drive the stores today: maintaining personal, transparent relationships with designers who push traceability. As Bolke points out, besides conservation, the word "conservatory" also signifies a place of study. The Conservatory encourages learning, and this new store will provide more room for educational growth. "For us, it's not about selling stuff. Because for that, you should just buy it on Amazon," he says. "We're selling discovery through curation, storytelling, and service." As long as you leave the store with a new appreciation for something (a cerulean wine glass from Alessandra Branca's latest collection, a funky dog bowl from Mr. Dog, an embroidered sheer dress from Uruguayan designer Gabriela Hearst), he's done his job. In this new store, Bolke wants to further elevate the shopping experience. That's why he included Teak Tearoom — a ladies-who- lunch spot with a treetop view of The Dallas Country Club. The menu at Teak Tearoom includes dishes familiar to habitués of the former T Room at Forty Five Ten: the Brian Bowl chopped salad, lemon pistachio tarts, and chicken tortilla soup. This dining-room concept was a very beautiful part of luxury retail in the '40s and '50s, where you went to a store like Neiman's to spend the day," he says. "You went to eat popovers and have alterations done, and to look at toys and work on your bridal registry. That's what we're reinventing here." The Conservatory on Two, 100 Highland Park Village, theconservatorynyc.com. take stock. That's when he came up with the concept for The Conservatory. During a break between Paris and New York fashion weeks, and no longer working in a store environment, he began online shopping. "I would constantly have items shipped to me from different stores, and it was never what I thought it would be, so I'd send it back," he says. "And because I was in the business, I knew what it took for that garment to get to me. And to just send it back … I mean, talk about a carbon-footprint waste." He decided to open a store built on sustainability and client experience. The first Conservatory (launched in 2019 in New York's Hudson Yards) functioned as more of a showroom: Customers could try on, but they couldn't take anything with them that day. Instead, Bolke would report back to the designers what item had sold Brian Bolke Teak Tearoom Design inspiration found in the home department 43

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