New York City’s newest multibrand retailer has set up shop in a less-trafficked pocket of Brooklyn than Williamsburg or Greenpoint.
Ven Space is a luxury menswear store by Chris Green, formerly the general merchandise manager of Need Supply Co. and Totokaelo. The store opened Friday in Carroll Gardens, the Brooklyn neighborhood better known as a dining hot spot than a luxury shopping destination. It is located at 369 Court Street, across from Carroll Park.
“Williamsburg has its own point of view, but this is the zone that I want to be in,” Green said, sitting in a wooden rocking chair inside Ven Space. A few feet away, a large Noguchi Akari lamp hangs from the ceiling with a string of oversized ceramic beads cascading through it. Dozens of terracotta pots and vases line the shelves on the wall farthest from the entrance, interrupted only by a vintage Braun Atelier record player designed by Dieter Rams in the late ’50s.
The store’s interior design is in the direction of minimalist asceticism, though warm elements add balance. Green worked with a metal fabricator on fixtures such as the metal-and-glass cash wrap counter. Marble sculptures and benches add a feeling of severity that is elsewhere softened by natural wood, leather and terracotta. The interior, Green said, was inspired by his home, which is a short walk from the store.
Chris Green in Ven Space. Photo by Jessi Frederick/Courtesy
In May, Ven hosted a monthlong Stussy archive pop-up, which drew a rare sighting in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood: queues of Gen Z and Millennial hypebeasts. Upon its official opening, Ven is selling clothing, accessories and shoes from designer brands such as Auralee, Casey Casey, Comme des Garçons Homme, Diemme, Dries Van Noten, Lemaire, Maison Margiela, Our Legacy and The Row.
“A store is a bit of a selfish proposition. I’m approaching it from my point of view,” Green said of his brand matrix. “That’s what I think makes stores special — if they have a distinct point of view, they become a destination.”
Green names If, Totokaelo and Epaulet as examples of stores whose brand curations suggested a strong perspective. “Places as they scale or grow try to be everything to everybody,” he said. “I don’t want to be everything to everybody.”
Luxury fashion is in a volatile era of consolidation and uncertainty. Internet economics have brought down e-commerce retailers such as Matches and Farfetch, and the Saks-Neimans merger is an indicator that even institutions with a strong brick-and-mortar presence aren’t immune to that which plagues the industry. To open a physical store at such a moment suggests optimism. More than that, Green has perspective. Years of experience on the sales floor and in corporate roles at the aforementioned Need Supply Co. and Totokaelo, as well as Club Monaco and East Dane, have shaped what can be described as a deep enthusiasm for product, which Green hopes to pass on to customers.
“With a lot of the designers that I’m carrying, there is focus and obsession,” he said. “These people are making these items because they’re obsessed with the process of making what they’re making, they’re obsessed with fabric, they want to be best-in-class. I think it’s a disservice just to be like ‘buy this item’ without passing on that knowledge and process. That’s what’s exciting for me, to be able to pass on that obsession from the designer to the end consumer.”
To inspire a casual, easygoing feel in-store, Green has made the stockroom visible, thus shoppable, to customers. “I want the consumer to understand that care for the product isn’t just for stuff that’s on the floor. It’s not all in poly bags and crumpled up,” he said. “I didn’t want everything to be so precious. Grab something if you need to grab it.”
Other considered details include a forthcoming in-house ceramics line made by an artisan in Costa Rica that will offer home goods at an accessible price point. Green also plans to tailor the store’s music to the mood of the moment. “I’ll curate a monthly playlist through Spotify and a monthly record curation that will play in the store and will coincide with the mood of whatever that month is,” Green said.
The interior of Ven Space in Brooklyn. Photo by Jessi Frederick/Courtesy
A stone’s throw away from Ven Space is Dae, a Korean cafe-restaurant by Carol Song, the former fashion director of Opening Ceremony. Further up on Atlantic Avenue is Outline, a multibrand women’s retailer whose cofounder Margaret Austin worked with Green at Totokaelo. Observing the success of both businesses gave Green a boost of confidence that beyond the local craving for Lucali’s or Frankies Spuntino is a growing appetite for luxury fashion.
“This neighborhood can sustain that,” he said. “That gives me hope for this venture, that it won’t fall on deaf ears.”
