Like many Manhattan retailers, Coming Soon boarded up its Lower East Side storefront at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring. Fortunately, the cult design store, known for selling sumptuous vintage furniture alongside colorful home accessories by today’s most renowned independent designers, didn’t close permanently—they simply relocated to a larger space down the block. After feeling constricted by their former location’s meager 640 square feet, co-owners Fabiana Faria and Helena Barquet decided to expand over the summer. The duo, who launched Coming Soon in 2013, preferred to stay in the neighborhood, which they feel “captures their approach to design: creative, emerging, and authentic.”
While upgrading to a larger space at first sounds like a risky move considering the barrage of challenges currently faced by bricks-and-mortar retail, Coming Soon’s online sales remained strong thanks to nearly everyone’s sudden urge to redecorate their home during quarantine. The new space also required minimal buildout (check out the existing polished concrete floor!), making the move much more financially feasible.
Inside, artful vignettes of the brand’s offerings, which include colorful Dusen Dusen hand towels, Cold Picnic soap dishes, and Anna Karlin decanters, forge a home-like atmosphere—it almost feels like a group hang of everyone’s favorite independent designers. Perhaps the standout is a cash-wrap counter designed by Chen Chen and Kai Williams, who fashioned various stones and marbles together with aluminum mesh. (The duo recently created a stunning installation for Hem’s new showroom in SoHo.) “It’s irreverent, not precious, fun, and slightly odd,” Barquet tells Curbed, “which are probably all of the things that both of us like a lot.”
