Sept. 14, 2017 – I worked a part-time job at Krystyna’s Place on Cornelia St. in New York this summer. I wanted to have the experience of doing a regular job, interacting with people, showing up for scheduled shifts. I walked into Krystyna’s Place one Friday night on my way to a wine bar with my friend Heather. I was dressed in an Iris Apfel t-shirt that my friend Dianne got me in Shanghai. This set off a conversation, and by the time I left the store, I’d bought a fantastic beaded belt and agreed to work at the store 2 days a week for 7 weeks while Krystyna was in Europe.
I have to say this was the most fun job I’ve ever had. I opened and closed, served customers, dressed the windows (and myself!), and created an online store for Krystyna’s Place on Etsy. This entailed creating all the visual and design elements for the store, including a logo and header. I photographed 30 pieces that Krystyna had selected, measured them, wrote descriptions, and fell in love with the clothes!
When the gig was over I spent half my final paycheck on clothes, shoes, and purses I’d fallen in love with in the store, and then came back again and bought half a dozen of the Etsy items!
The store ambience is fantastic, with old black-and-white movies playing, along with contemporary jazz by a fantastic Polish jazz trio, and of course all the gorgeous vintage clothes. Krystyna is an amazing artist and designer. She paints ceramic animals, like the pig below, and she painted much of the wall art, furnishings, and rugs in the store. She is truly an inspired genius, with an irrepressible creative flow. Everyone who walked in was amazed and said they loved the store. If you live in New York, check it out at 12 Cornelia St.
During the time I worked there I met many interesting folks from the neighborhood, as well as visitors who wandered into the store on their way to restaurants on the block, including Pearl Oyster Bar, Palma, and Cornelia St. Cafe. One day the LA stylist Sophie Lopez came in and picked up two gorgeous crocheted sweaters (one pink, one yellow) and matching plaid pants. I didn’t know who she was, but found out afterwards. On my last day, one of the store’s neighbors, himself a designer, walked by and admired my window display. He told me he regularly sends pictures of the displays to his friend who is the aforementioned LA stylist!
One day a rather sketchy woman came in, with bleached hair with 24″ roots, who sniffed constantly. She spent a lot of time looking around the store, trying things on, and chatting. I even asked for her advice about one of the Etsy photos. But when she left, her bag looked a little lumpy, and there was a blank space on the shelf where these white shoes used to be. Dang! A shoplifter. Another time I lost a sale because the payment processing vendor stopped the account in order to force us to call them. They wanted to sell us a payment processing machine. The nerve! So this is New York—unbelievable splendor, and the petty dark side as well. And a lesson for me about keeping an eagle eye on sketchy customers.
