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By Madeleine Luckel
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the nation’s business was deeply shocked. And as the reverberations continue, this economic earthquake has hit restaurants and businesses hard. For members of the design community, this idea would possibly evoke the jeweler activity of one of their own: The Mercerie and Roman and Williams Guild: Howard Street’s double adventure opened through AD100 designers Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch at the end of the queue. 2017.
“At first it was a scary thing because we rented this huge store,” Standefer told AD PRO about the first few weeks from mid-March to March expired. However, Standefer is not one to surrender without a fight, especially, it seems, when it comes to the jobs of its employees. It was this line of idea that led Standefer and Alesch to launch Virtually Yours, a new virtual design service for decorators and average consumers. The program, which is lately available for loose use, is introduced to the talented well that is the Talented Staff of the Guild Store, making those other people design experts who can advise on purchasing products.
“A lot of that came from the preference to remain our team,” Standsefer says. “This lovely organization of other people has been with us since our opening. And that’s unusual. When he hit, when the shop and the place to eat closed, I thought, My God, I can’t let those other people go. “Soon after, Standefer and Alesch began to think: why not exercise Guild staff to make some of the paintings with the customers they are so accustomed to? After all, while the other people in consultation may not be house designers through exercise, they have a deep aesthetic knowledge acquired over the years. (When Clayton Moore, The Guild’s Director of Sales and Retailers, was later contacted by email, saying that all painters are “passionate about helping others bring integrity and character to their spaces”).
The Guild, which opens at The Mercerie.
Virtually Yours manages to exploit more facets of the guild’s origins and projected future. Part of the explanation for why Standefer and Alesch first introduced the business was to make the Roman and Williams logo available to more people than to their own personal consumers. Before COVID-19, they had begun to realize that the number of consumers arriving here were not founded in New York and instead came from places like California, Paris and Japan. This new virtual enterprise will allow the Guild to expand further. “It was almost like a eureka moment,” Standefer said of the resolution to launch. “I don’t need to make the store the only way other people can talk to us.”
Standefer considers the road in a few years and believes Virtually Your will still have a vital role to play. Frequent travelers in general times, Standefer and Alesch see a world where designers like them can use the program when they are in airport lounges and on the move. While it turns out that the service may not be completely free at all times, as far as industry members are concerned, Standefer emphasizes that they “try to be as accommodating as possible” to bring on-site product presentations to life.
In addition, Virtually Yours is rarely the only news the duo has to share: The Mercerie has been reopened for al fresco dining, and the Guild itself is really open to appointment visits. “I think luxury wants an extra point of privacy,” Standefer says when asked how accurately they had adapted the area to secure those appointments. Your opinion resonates. After all, it’s not too hard to believe that fashion, design and hospitality companies around the world are starting to think exactly the same way. Specifically, the Guild goes beyond popular practices, creatively thinking about washing hands, disinfecting items and even, in the case of consumers referred to the store through fellow designer AD100 Nate Berkus, in welcoming them with traditional masks.
With all these changes, Roman and Williams’ administrators were naturally under some strain. “It was really intense,” Standefer says. But at the end of the day, their purpose continues to return to that of their own employees: “It’s really about them,” he says. A moment later, he adds that as far as the Guild is concerned, “they are his center and soul.”
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