Atlantic Avenue Art Walk.

We are happy to announce that we are participating in the Atlantic Avenue Art Walk this weekend.

Our featured artist is Stephanie Schwallie. Her beautiful collage work is assembled from original 19th century woodcut illustrations. As she describes them "The resulting images are layers and layers of the original antique woodcuts, some creating scenic daydreams on washed out pages, others are collections of bad habits, and smaller studies are wedged between glass like specimens under a microscope."

Please join us for the opening reception 

Saturday, June 6th from 5 - 9 pm

Champagne and treats to be served.

xoxo COUNCIL

Girl, you'll be a woman soon.

It's official... COUNCIL is E X P A N D I N G.

The wall is coming down and we will soon be growing to more than DOUBLE our size. You know what that means, don't you? More antiques, more jewels, more dresses, and, of course, another party.

We will maintain regular business hours throughout the renovation, so stop by and watch the progress unfold! 

Stay tuned for details on the midsummer re-opening fête this July.

xoxo COUNCIL

Parlay! Tomorrow!

A little reminder to join us tomorrow from 4 - 8 p.m. to sample Casey and Kahlil's lovely Rosé Parlay and enjoy special deals on select COUNCIL merchandise. 

We hope to see you there!

xoxo COUNCIL

Girls on Film.

Katharine Hepburn was a lady, and a very fine one at that. Her iconic style blended simplicity, a little androgyny, and lots of confidence. The result was a look that remains as timeless as she does. We can only dream of being so lovely.

xoxo COUNCIL

Our girl Friday.

We are happy to announce that our next show will be the work of our lovely friend and frequent dance partner, Stephanie Schwallie. 

Stephanie is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, and though she has been working full time as a jewelry designer for the likes of Vera Wang and Isaac Mizrahi since, she has never stopped creating her beautiful and enchanting artwork. 

We will be featuring a collection of her collages that she created from illustrations dating back to the 1870's. Steph gathered her materials from a set of 19th Century Encyclopedia's being thrown out by the thoughtless relatives of a Henry Darger-esque neighbor back home. We're happy she did.

Her work is beautiful and charming, the attention to detail impressive, and each collage is striking both alone or hanging in a group. 

We will be featuring her work in the Atlantic Avenue Art Walk on the weekend of June 6th and 7th. Details about the opening reception coming soon...

xoxo COUNCIL

Parlay.

Our good friends Casey and Kahlil have recently produced a very lovely Rosé of Pinot Noir called Parlay. Please help us celebrate Parlay's launch and sample some of their tasty wine on Saturday, May 30th from 4 - 8 pm. 

We will also have special sale prices on select COUNCIL merchandise during the event.

Hope to see you there!

xoxo COUNCIL

P.S. For more information about Parlay, visit their website



"From Sonoma to Brooklyn we have found ourselves enjoying Rosé on roof decks, great lawns and small boats. So when the chance came to produce our own, we combined our zest for living, artisanal winemaking and some of the finest fruit from Sonoma Coast to create this tasty wine for you.

Our Rosé of Pinot Noir is crafted with select fruit from vineyards in Western Sonoma County (Sonoma Coast appellation). The wine is barrel fermented for approximately four months in new French oak. We recommend drinking this wine between now and October but if you like Rosé in the winter please feel free to drink it then too." - Casey & Kahlil

Take me out tonight.

Welcome back to our bi-weekly installation TAKE ME OUT TONIGHT, spotlighting pieces from each of the COUNCIL collections.

From Plume Jewels, the Bow Belt. 

Every waist is a gift. Available in black and nude silk taffeta, light blue denim, and mauve raw silk. Waist adjustable. $125.

                                               Tie me up, tie me down.

From Miranda Bennett Design, the Jetty Skirt.

The perfect wrap skirt, complete with pockets and a bow-tie waist. Linen body, lined in cotton. Custom colors upon request. $158.

                                                                    Sea change.

That lucky old sun.

The lovely Heather Summerville at Lucky Magazine just did an interesting article for their June issue called "retail evolution!".

 

The article is about ways that new boutiques are offering fresh approaches to staid retail formulas in order to adapt to both the flailing economy and a highly saturated marketplace. We were fortunate enough to be profiled under the heading "creative cooperatives".

Take a look below!

xoxo COUNCIL

Au Naturale

Walking through the rooms of dioramas at the Museum of Natural History with their accidental whimsy and painstaking precision feels akin to the comforting quirkiness of a Wes Anderson film or revisiting a favorite picture book from childhood. The Hall of Biodiversity with its infinite variety of both plant and animal life, from hand strung seeds to taxidermy flamingos in mid-flight, is worth the visit alone. We would happily accept just a sliver of the one hundred foot installation in Council (maybe once the expansion is complete?! More on that soon...). There is so much inspiration to be taken not only from the forms on display there, but in the beautiful method by which they are displayed.

The practice of collecting and cataloguing from the natural world is an impulse that often begins as early as childhood in the form of rock and insect collections, or any other stray objects we can find around the schoolyard. The impulse often evolves as we do, expanding to include more refined items - stamps, figurines, books, shoes, cameras. The basic sentiment remains the same though: an esteem for the products of our environment, an acknowledgement of the chaos and diversity that constitutes this environment, the preciousness of these elements when they are isolated and studied.

These photos are a tribute to a recent rainy day visit to AMNH. Hopefully it will inspire you to make the visit yourself soon or, if not, to spend an afternoon tinkering on a diorama or revisiting a favorite collection of your own.

xoxo COUNCIL

Be our guest.

Sigourney Weaver, a woman who changed her own name at the tender age of 12, deserves more then a Girls on Film tribute, she deserves a dinner invitation. It is our hope, our wish, our dream that one day the pleasure and privilege of hosting Ms.Weaver may be ours. A shot in the dark, yeah, sure, but these three girls can dream, and maybe somewhere out there in our collective six degrees (make that eighteen?)of separation there is the glimmer of possibility, the shiny surface of hope.

So, let's formally say it:


Dear Ms.Weaver,

We adore you. If by some strange and beautiful miracle your eyes find this, will you please do us the honor of joining us for a COUNCIL supper?

You would make our dreams come true.

Sincerely,

COUNCIL