A Global Shopper’s Address Book: Curated by Philip Fimmano

Santa Fe Dry Goods — New Mexico

Bringing together the world’s most intriguing fashion and interior brands in the heart of Santa Fe, this risk-taking store has the best buy in garments, accessories and home goods, combining high quality with remarkable taste for a discerning clientele.

(Kipos Claudia Blouse by Rianna + Nina)

Shopping with soul: six collectors explain why they keep returning to IFAM Santa Fe and why making a stand against homogenization is so important…

Shobhan Porter, store owner

What do you do?
I own and buy for three retail stores in Santa Fe, New Mexico: Workshop, Santa Fe Dry Goods and Wild Life.

Tell us about your favourite pieces…
The large indigo bedspread was made by master dyer Aboubakar Fofana, from Mali. I think it is outstanding because he achieved a three-dimensionality to what is a two-dimensional object. But what captures my heart and eyes is the intensity of the mid-tone blue. It has its own voice. The three blue embroideries were hand-stitched by two really amazing craftswomen from Laos. The work is highly detailed, the colours have incredible depth, but what I like most is that the design is so universal that I can combine those pieces with items from any other part of the world and they work together. These three pieces speak a universal language. The last two pieces are vintage African mud cloth that have been in my family for the past 30 years.

What is it that makes Santa Fe unique?
Santa Fe is particularly special because it is still an artist colony that prides itself on individuality, freedom and creativity. This doesn’t leave much room for the homogenization that exists in many other places. The market is unique because it celebrates art that retains an earthiness – even if it is perfectly constructed. The artists still focus on historical, deeply-rooted aesthetics and methods. There is a lot of soul; we forgo gloss for authenticity.

How long have you been visiting and what were your first impressions? 
I’ve been attending the Folk Art Market since I moved back to Santa Fe in 2008. It is a cheerful event
that reminds the consumer that art, textiles, clothing and décor are made by people; and, these days, we should be willing to pay a premium for what is often a dying art.

What would be your dream find?
I am always searching for something that is so beautiful it makes me cry… a piece of art that sings with human ingenuity and a good heart.

The designer who wants to change the way you think about clothes.

Evan Kinori mentions Santa Fe Dry Goods as an outpost of pleasure and for a particular way of thinking and shopping that is not only more “sustainable” but also more beautiful.

Evan Kinori at his exhibition at JDJ Gallery in Manhattan, featuring his clothing and furniture. (Makeda Sandford for The Washington Post)

By Rachel Tashjian

The ultimate takeaway from Kinori’s show is that our relationship to desire — to wanting clothes, to seeking them out, to keeping them — is broken. Many Kinori customers talk about the system that his clothing inhabits, how it all looks so good together and changes so infrequently, making it easier to get dressed but also, in the beauty of its design and execution, offers continual pleasure.

Kinori is not the only figure in fashion with this philosophy, though he is one of its most outspoken. Stoffa, Casey Casey, Paul Harnden and Lauren Manoogian also take an obsessively alternative approach to making and marketing clothes — a category often referred to as slow fashion. Stores like Worthwhile in Charleston, S.C., C’H’C’M in New York, Santa Fe Dry Goods in New Mexico and Reliquary in San Francisco (which was the first store to carry Kinori’s clothes) function almost as outposts for this way of thinking and shopping. Many of these names have flown under the radar for years, though its wearers often run the risk of fetishizing them.

Veranda Magazine names Santa Fe Dry Goods as a must-visit store in Santa Fe.

How to Spend a Perfect Weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe Regional Airport welcomes just a handful of flights each day. Since the vast majority of visitors connect somewhere else and have spent most of the travel day living off in-flight coffee and cookies, food is typically the first thing on their minds. Before heading to a late lunch, drop your bags at Rosewood Inn Of the Anasazi, a true respite just off Santa Fe Plaza in the heart of downtown. Resist the urge to sink into a cozy chair by the fire in the library or your rustic-meets-refined room (there will be plenty of time for that later) because it’s time to eat.

Walk down the street to The Shed, an award-winning, family-run establishment that opened back in 1953 and continues to serve up some of the tastiest New Mexican cooking in the area. You can’t go wrong with the traditional posole. Be sure to save room for the tamales smothered in red and green chile sauce. Afterward, bop into some of the lovely curated shops — notably Los Poblanos Farm Shop Norte, Heritage By Hand, and Santa Fe Dry Goods.

Santa Fe Dry Goods owner opens third shop, with items for the home

The owner of Santa Fe Dry Goods and its neighbor, Workshop, two retail shops facing the Plaza on Old Santa Fe Trail, has added a third store: Wild Life.

By Joseph Ditzler

Wild Life specializes in handcrafted items for the home — tumblers by British glassblower Michael Ruh, tableware by Christiane Perrochon, ceramics by Astier de Villatte, for example.

“I would describe it as a focus on accessories for the home that have high levels of finishing but have their roots in cultures from around the world,” said company owner Shobhan Porter. “Nothing we’re trying to do is trying to be flashy in any way, shape or form. There’s always an earthy or artistic nature to what we bring in.”

Wild Life opened in March after a three-month restoration of the 2,000-square-foot space inside the Catron Block, a spot formerly occupied by Gift N’ Gourmet, which moved to Water Street and Old Santa Fe Trail. The interior restoration by contractor Douglas Maahs removed layers of wallpaper to reveal what’s left of the circa-1890s original wall covering, visible in remnants near the ceiling.

Outside, Maahs’ crew also uncovered four iron columns, two each flanking the entrances to Wild Life and Workshop, a women’s clothing and accessories store next door. Maahs reconfigured the two storefronts to suggest something of the original design of those spaces. The historic structure has undergone several alterations in its 127-year history, including the addition of the portal in the late 1960s.

“I would say the idea was to give it a flavor of the memory of what it was. In the original building, there were actually a downstairs, window wells and stairwells in the front. The stairs are still buried under the sidewalk,” Maahs said.

In addition to removing decades worth of wall covering, contractors lifted layers of flooring to get to the original surface of worn, narrow boards, Porter said. To reach it, workers removed a barn-style floor and one layer each of linoleum and tar. Earlier, Porter had stripped the layers of flooring in Workshop to find the original boards laid in a herringbone pattern.

“I think it’s one of two white pine floors in the city, but we wanted to get back to the uniformity and the handsomeness of what was that 1891 to 1912 look,” she said.

The renovations to the entrances at Wild Life and Workshop went through the review process by the city Historic Districts Review Board. The Catron Block is considered a “contributing structure,” meaning it adds to the historic context of the Santa Fe Downtown and Eastside Historic District. Despite the changing face of its first-story exterior, the Catron Block is the least altered of the buildings facing the Plaza in 1891, according to the Historic Santa Fe Foundation.

Porter declined to disclose the project cost, other than to say it represented a significant investment for a retail firm.

“There was a lot of interaction to get this right,” Maahs said. Porter’s drive to reveal the original interior design of her shops “was really the driving force” behind the project, he said.

The Catron Block, on the northeast side of the Plaza at East Palace Avenue, was completed in 1891 and named for the original owner, Thomas Benton Catron, a lawyer and politician who served as one of New Mexico’s first two U.S. senators after statehood.

“The Catron Block was built by the local firm of Berardinelli and Palladino in the Italianate, or, as it is sometimes called, the railroad commercial style, which in this period represented to Santa Fe’s business leaders the urgently needed modernization of the commerce district,” according to The Historic Santa Fe Foundation.

Retail has had a presence in the building from its early days. The White House, a women’s fashion store, opened on the building east front in 1912, according to the foundation website. Later, the site became The Guarantee, a department store owned and operated by Gene and Jane Petchesky and Abe and Marian Silver for more than 50 years. The Silver family still owns the building.

The highly trafficked corner naturally draws shoppers’ attention. With Wild Life, Porter now leases 10,000 square feet for the retail operation, including Dry Goods, a 26-year-old women’s fashion and accessories store, she said. She purchased the business in 2008 from her parents, Greig and Helga Porter. All three shops contribute to one lifestyle aesthetic, which emanates from Porter’s own vision.

“I’m a rummager. If I work a normal day job here, I probably spend an additional three to four hours every night looking,” she said.

She focuses expressly on handcrafted merchandise from independent designers and artisans, rather than brand-name goods from well-known manufacturers, she said.

“We try to bring in both clothing and home goods that are tied to art and maybe things that take you back to the people that make them,” Porter said. “We’re kind of counter-current. As the world goes toward commercialism, we’re trying to make our mark in the opposite vein.”