Text: Alec Coiro
Photo: Olimpia Dior
If you’re familiar with Project no. 8, the iconic store on the Lower East Side and Ace Hotel (and a “project” of Rodrigues’s), you’ll have some sense of what’s going on at Rodrigues’s new venture, LRC. More significant than a pop-up shop, more in-depth than a trunk show, and more personal than a store, LRC has been a place where Rodrigues brings a community of designers together with a community customers. It’s a process that involves Rodrigues’s unique curation skills, the art galleries of the neighborhood, and even research sessions at the MET. Furthermore, as people grow weary of buying generic crappily made crap among strangers in the fast fashion big box stores across the land, LRC — and other salons like it — will be a beacon, an example of an alternative way where the fashion is well crafted, considered, and personal, and the strangers are replaced by community of buyers, and shopping becomes an occasion for gathering together and is no longer just a therapy to cope with the other fast food, fast career, fast dating, fast aspects of life.
Olimpia Dior went to the latest Salon, and we did an interview with Lydia Rodrigues herself.
Is this the first LRC ? And if not, how many have come before it, and what inspired the first one?
I have had 4 salons so far, the first one was in October 2015
How do you curate the lines for LRC ?
When I started I reached out to the designers and makers I had grown lovely and trusting relationships with, where I was also familiar with their work and then reached out to designers who I find interesting, smart, and have something in common with how I am trying to style, with classic, timeless, well tailored and also fun pieces. Each season my roster of designers is growing and we grow together to dress friends and clients.
For those that can’t make it, can you describe the LRC experience?
It’s a very personal experience, a fun place to play dress ups, and perhaps find something unique for yourself by a roster of visionary designers I am so excited to be working with and collaborating on this amazing project with!
It's a very personal experience, a fun place to play dress ups, and perhaps find something unique for yourself by a roster of visionary designers.
The Salon is hosted by the gallery at 47 Canal Street. How did that partnership come into being?
I used to run a fabulous store in the neighborhood, Project no. 8 you might remember it. I met every person in every part of this neighborhood including people I thought were so interesting to me, who were doing incredible projects, such as Margaret Lee from 47 Canal. I had heard that Mathew Gallery was finishing their time at the gallery, so I asked if they had space in their program, and they said YES!
Can you tell us a little about yourself and what other projects you work on when the Salon is not in session?
The idea is that I work on salon all year round, finding/meeting new designers/ideas/makers, I spend time at the library doing random research, I like the library at the MET. I also work somewhere to keep this new business afloat, and that place fills lots of my time, with new and fun people and experiences.
