NYLON - March 2008 - (Page 86) LOST AND FOUND WITH RECLAIMED WOOD, FOUND TRINKETS, AND A HOME FULL OF GNOMES, SAMANTHA PLEET’S APARTMENT AND OFFICE SHARE HER STORYTELLING FASHION PHILOSOPHY. BY ANDREA CUSICK. PHOTOGRAPHED BY VORRASI Gnomes are hiding in between plants and peeking out from behind a collection of Matryoshka dolls in designer Samantha Pleet’s Williamsburg apartment. The gnome population is mainly Swedish, little guys that Pleet bought before they became readily available in Brooklyn, but they seem right at home here. The occasional red-hatted fellow also lives in her office—an equally wondrous space just a 10 minute walk away—keeping her company while she works on the latest collection of her fantasyled womenswear collection. After moving to New York in 2000 to study at Pratt, the Philadephia-born designer started her line before she even graduated. “I had all this time on my hands in my last year, so I started making my own clothes in addition to the course collection,” says Pleet. “I ended up wearing them into my favorite store, which was TG-170,” she recalls. “They placed an order, and ever since then it’s been taking off.” This season she will be showing a presentation during New York Fashion Week and has enlisted the help of her husband of three months, architect Patrick McGovern, to co-design a menswear line entitled Patrick Pleet. The couple’s cooperative approach has extended to the way they’ve decorated their home, as evidenced by details such as reclaimed wood bookshelves affixed with found Victorian brackets. “We both talked about ideas for this space together. But he’s the actual builder, so I generally just say things like ‘A little to the left, no, no this way!’” Pleet says with a laugh. Walking into their apartment, a two-floor walkup that Pleet has called home for nearly four years, I’m greeted with the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and homemade (by McGovern) maple scones. Fetchingly dressed in a grey silk blouse with a black pussycat bow and shiny black riding boots, her face framed with heavy bangs, the petite designer gives me the tour of her space. “I love antiques and things that have a history behind them,” she says while showing me a wooden cabinet of curiosities, made by her grandfather, in her otherwise sparse bedroom. “All my favorite collections are gathered in here,” she explains, pointing to a Viking drinking horn, a pocket watch collection found in markets in both London and Paris, and some bugs set in resin from one of clockwise from top left: a shelf filled with elephants and beauty products; the designer; her dining table and tree-branch wallpaper; reclaimed wood bookshelves; pleet and mcgovern with their record collection; the cabinet of curiosities. nesting
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