A+R is British ex-pat Andy Griffith, a former film editor and self-avowed design junkie, and Rose Apodaca, a pop culture and style journalist.
In late 2005, we opened our tiny shop in the heart of Los Angeles' creative enclave known as Silverlake, keen on sharing our excitement for great design with anyone who would listen.
At A+R, we strive to bring together an uncommon and exclusive product mix that emphasizes good and thoughtful modern design.
We love talking about the designers we find locally and from afar, because it only goes to show that this brilliant and bold community is not so much distinguished by geographic or cultural boundaries but bound by the pursuit of aesthetics and innovative ideas.
From stemware to stuffed toys, books to baubles, body care to bright lights, the constant is design that charms, functions and inspires.
How does this make A+R different from the other great design shops in the universe?
We obsessively seek out the newest products, aiming to offer them first. We cherry pick the best from the best manufacturers. We don't settle for product simply available through domestic distributors: Challenges be damned, we import from anywhere in the world. We never sell anything we haven't personally handled. We love everything we sell.
In a sound bite: Global design. Edited.
That's A+R.
We hope you find things you've been looking for all your lives, and stuff you didn't know you needed. And, whether you're a designer or enthusiast like us, if you come across anything you believe fits our world, please let us know.
Hello A+R, Very congenial merchandizing. I would like to share some of our accessory designs with you. ADJEKTIVES+MODDIF IERS. http:adjektives.c om Greetz from SF, -FzS
When Jack White decided he wanted to ape the iconic pearly king and queens of London’s boroughs for the White Stripes’ next incarnation, the duo’s stylist didn’t bat an eye. In part, because she admittedly didn’t know what the hell Jack was going on about. But Brandy St. John (yes, that’s her christened name) was frustrated with the current state of her job: rock stars actually striving for a look that came off the VIP rack of some designer’s exclusive stockpile. “What’s the deal with rock stars wanting to all look the same? They all want clothes from the same store, the same designers,” she laments to me. “But rock ‘n’ roll should be about one-of-a-kind outfits no one will have, or even want to wear.”
So Brandy set out to turn Meg and Jack into pearlies. The Pearly King and Queen are a throw back to Victorian London, when a royal pair were elected among the raucous tribes of fruit and veggie vendors to keep the peace. How else to distinguish themselves from their plebian brethren? Dressed in black suits elaborately covererd in pearl buttons, natch.
How the suits originated is as baroque as the patterns. The leading legend involves a cargo spill on the Thames that swept the Japanese shipment of pearly buttons onto the shore, where (and this is where it gets as elaborate as the suits) an orphan costermonger named Henry Croft, at age 13 in 1875, set himself off from the rest by festooning his rags with the buttons he swept up off the streets. In today’s mod London, pearly royalty represent at festivals, weddings and charity events.
The Stripes appear on their latest album, "Icky Thump," in suits decorated with 13,000 buttons—mostly sewn on by Brandy herself. The title of the June 19 release is a take off of the Yorkshire colloquialism “by ecky-thump,” an exclamation of surprise.
When Jack proposed the pearly concept last June, Brandy was just off executing the look for his other band, The Raconteurs. She’d already collaborated with the Whites on the peppermint candy motif-meets-mariachi style for their previous album. Each day on the European leg of that tour, Brandy would fashion a neckpiece for Meg, festooned with rosettes or ribbons or antique buttons she’d score at the flea markets in Paris and other cities. As the drummer, Meg prefers a simple uniform of slacks and a T-shirt, she says. “So we’d do a neckpiece to jazz her up a bit.”
A music fan, Brandy got the styling bite by way of punk when, at age 12, on the back of the school bus, she got hooked on the Dead Kennedys. She created her own major at U.C. Berkeley, studying Italian and German opera, the films of Stanley Kubrick, theater directing and costume design. With no contacts or concept on how to break into styling, she came to L.A. One hot morning, she spotted a harried woman in a parking lot. “I figured she had to be a stylist.” She was. Within a week St. John was assisting A-list celebrity dresser Jessica Paster, hunting down the perfect clutch for an Emmys-bound Jennifer Aniston to carry for her first public outing with Brad Pitt. Her next mentor was Rachel Zoe, whose client roster then counted more pop singers than actresses. When Zoe shifted focus to Hollywood, Brandy picked up the music clients and her own agent.
A crafty girl, Brandy spent the first five months researching, experimenting and sketching out patterns. Even with all the planning, it became quickly obvious she would need more than the 3,200 buttons she initially allotted. Then two weeks from the March photo shoot in Nashville, she had to recruit two girlfriends to help her complete the work. “We became an old-fashioned sewing circle, each evening getting together in our heels and dresses, gossiping about our boyfriends," she says. "But we were so excited about what the project represented--a return to the kind of hand-crafted, crazy, custom clothing that we admired on our favorite rock stars growing up.”
When Jack White decided he wanted to ape the iconic pearly king and queens of London’s boroughs for the White Stripes’ next incarnation, the duo’s stylist didn’t bat an eye. In part, because she admittedly didn’t know what the hell Jack was going on about. But Brandy St. John (yes, that’s her christened name) was frustrated with the current state of her job: rock stars actually striving for a look that came off the VIP rack of some designer’s exclusive stockpile. “What’s the deal with rock stars wanting to all look the same? They all want clothes from the same store, the same designers,” she laments to me. “But rock ‘n’ roll should be about one-of-a-kind outfits no one will have, or even want to wear.”
So Brandy set out to turn Meg and Jack into pearlies. The Pearly King and Queen are a throw back to Victorian London, when a royal pair were elected among the raucous tribes of fruit and veggie vendors to keep the peace. How else to distinguish themselves from their plebian brethren? Dressed in black suits elaborately covererd in pearl buttons, natch.
How the suits originated is as baroque as the patterns. The leading legend involves a cargo spill on the Thames that swept the Japanese shipment of pearly buttons onto the shore, where (and this is where it gets as elaborate as the suits) an orphan costermonger named Henry Croft, at age 13 in 1875, set himself off from the rest by festooning his rags with the buttons he swept up off the streets. In today’s mod London, pearly royalty represent at festivals, weddings and charity events.
The Stripes appear on their latest album, "Icky Thump," in suits decorated with 13,000 buttons—mostly sewn on by Brandy herself. The title of the June 19 release is a take off of the Yorkshire colloquialism “by ecky-thump,” an exclamation of surprise.
When Jack proposed the pearly concept last June, Brandy was just off executing the look for his other band, The Raconteurs. She’d already collaborated with the Whites on the peppermint candy motif-meets-mariachi style for their previous album. Each day on the European leg of that tour, Brandy would fashion a neckpiece for Meg, festooned with rosettes or ribbons or antique buttons she’d score at the flea markets in Paris and other cities. As the drummer, Meg prefers a simple uniform of slacks and a T-shirt, she says. “So we’d do a neckpiece to jazz her up a bit.”
A music fan, Brandy got the styling bite by way of punk when, at age 12, on the back of the school bus, she got hooked on the Dead Kennedys. She created her own major at U.C. Berkeley, studying Italian and German opera, the films of Stanley Kubrick, theater directing and costume design. With no contacts or concept on how to break into styling, she came to L.A. One hot morning, she spotted a harried woman in a parking lot. “I figured she had to be a stylist.” She was. Within a week St. John was assisting A-list celebrity dresser Jessica Paster, hunting down the perfect clutch for an Emmys-bound Jennifer Aniston to carry for her first public outing with Brad Pitt. Her next mentor was Rachel Zoe, whose client roster then counted more pop singers than actresses. When Zoe shifted focus to Hollywood, Brandy picked up the music clients and her own agent.
A crafty girl, Brandy spent the first five months researching, experimenting and sketching out patterns. Even with all the planning, it became quickly obvious she would need more than the 3,200 buttons she initially allotted. Then two weeks from the March photo shoot in Nashville, she had to recruit two girlfriends to help her complete the work. “We became an old-fashioned sewing circle, each evening getting together in our heels and dresses, gossiping about our boyfriends," she says. "But we were so excited about what the project represented--a return to the kind of hand-crafted, crazy, custom clothing that we admired on our favorite rock stars growing up.”
