SHOP WATCH: JAYSON HOME AND GARDEN!

Photos courtesy of Jayson Home & Garden

So this is Jayson Home & Garden – the posh home furnishing and garden store in Chicago’s Lincoln Park.

Been loving what Jayson Home & Garden has to offer for the past few years and have often featured the store’s goods on Cococozy. The store, owned by Jay Goltz, first opened its doors back in 1997 and has about 20,000 square feet of phenomenal furniture, accessories, lighting, flea market and garden finds.

Caroline Scheeler, VP Creative Director of Jayson Home & Garden was kind enough to answer questions about this wonderful store for today’s SHOP WATCH:

COCO: What do you hope people will feel when they walk into the store?
CAROLINE SCHEELER, VP CREATIVE DIRECTOR, JAYSON HOME & GARDEN: Happy. Special. Cool. Like they have just discovered something ….hidden….even if it’s their 900th trip to the store and it’s in the middle of the city of Chicago! Something new, old, inspiring, curious….every shopping trip. A place that they want to tell their friends about and bring them to. A sense of warmth….both from the merchandise mix and from our sales staff. Lots of customers think of our sales people as friends! I hope that our customer’s think that they can count on us to constantly evolve our look and yet remain true to our brand…..and I think that really is what keeps us different.

COCO: Is there a particular “Jayson Home & Garden style”?
CAROLINE: I think there is definitely an element of drama in what we do. Staying fresh every season….buying products that are perhaps just a bit ahead of the curve. The mix….traditional, fashion-forward, textural, layered, modern, classic, ethnic, vintage, antique …. Collecting and decorating happily and successfully has so much to do with context. I think that our customers are a savvy lot and understand that.

COCO: Tell me a bit about the vintage/antique home furnishings…what is the design goal in selecting these?
CAROLINE: To set us apart….. and to have really, really special things for our customers. You only buy a sofa or a dining table every 7-10 years…..but collecting, decorating, adorning your home is an ongoing passion. Our Flea Market events are becoming legendary. We have so much fun with them and it is really a special event….with people waiting in line at dawn….for the warm croissants…and first peek at the finds. It’s like a European Flea Market…without the jet lag or the fleas!

COCO: I understand you have a Spring collection for the store…tell me a bit about this…how did this come about and what theme was in mind when developing the line?
CAROLINE: Unlike most home furnishings retailers…because of our size….we can change our product mix much more frequently. We can respond to trends and whims in decorating and fashion…..react to what our customers are buying or not buying . This spring we really tried, in our buying, to be price sensitive while keeping true to our brand. Our “look” changes every season. Spring offers a time to be perhaps a bit more fresh and clean and autumn and winter are a welcome time for nesting , reflecting and gathering. We don’t want our customers to have brand whiplash ….so our “looks” sort of evolve into each other. Again, what does set us apart is that we buy and merchandise the store on a “fashion world” time line …..changing with the seasons….always an eye on the horizon.

COCO: Tell me why “garden” is also incorporated into the store’s title and the merchandise.
CAROLINE: Our gardening season in Chicago is so painfully short. But we are passionate gardeners….so our season starts fast and reluctantly crawls into autumn. We saw a void in the market in Chicago ….there were really only a couple of urban garden stores back in 1996. And we were really starting to see an evolution in nesting….and decorating that extended beyond the interior. Today the evolution continues with more educated gardeners. We, and our customers, consider the outdoor spaces around our homes to be extensions of the home so we try to find unique items for the garden as well be they plants, vintage pieces or garden ornaments.

COCO: What can shoppers look forward to if they visit the store in person or conversely online?
CAROLINE: You simply cannot replicate the sensory feast of our bricks and mortar store. When you are physically in the store ….you have the light quality, the burning candles, the people, the music, the colors and textures and flowers and buzzing vibe that is ever changing. The website is an edited and very shoppable version of the store. It really has such a different feel. There is definitely cohesion with the landing pages on the site but we also keep the site very simple and easy to use. You will never have things flashing at you on our site… The store versus the site is also a great example of context. The online products….cut out on white…are very easy to shop….. yet aren’t really in any kind of context other than that of the virtual store. So….you can, perhaps, better imagine a chrome yellow, velvet antique sofa in your super modern high rise flat more easily than you could if you were in our store with the dark walls and antiques setting the stage.

Thank you Caroline and Abbe for all of the photos and fantastic information.

Also THANK YOU so much for partnering on COCOCOZY GIVEAWAY #4 (readers see next post).

If you are in Chicago and want to stop by this stylish home shop, here are the details:
Jayson Home & Garden
1885 N. Clybourn
Chicago, IL 60614
1-800-472-1885

Hope you all have a great Monday and you enter the giveaway!

xo
Coco