Recycled Modern Opens 'Flagship' Store In Harper Court, Bringing Home Decor And Rising Artists To Hyde Park

HYDE PARK — A vintage furnishings, art gallery and celebration space is now open up in Hyde Park’s Harper Court as its proprietor aims to create the store as a centre for creatives on the South Side.

Recycled Modern-day, 5231 S. Harper Court docket, sells refinished home furniture, home décor, artwork and equipment chosen by operator Shari Currie, a Kenwood resident.

Currie sells things she individually connects with, these as a white sofa painted with a repeating Black Life Make any difference sample, handstitched pillows from Reformed College and functions by creatives these types of as photographer Clifton Henri, artist Jamie Cooper and painter Anthony Olusina, she said.

“I want you to have that encounter of walking into your household,” Currie said. “I want you to get these items into your dwelling, search at it and say, ‘Hey, I got that from Recycled Present day.’”

The Hyde Park shop is open noon-6:30 p.m. Thursday-Friday and midday-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. It’s appointment-only Tuesdays.

A productive initial calendar year in Hyde Park would entail “everybody owning a piece of art or home furniture from this house,” Currie said.

Recycled Modern-day will also host frequent occasions, these kinds of as the store’s tender opening Nov. 5, all through which readers could fee “Ugly Portraits” by the artist EWRKS and audio by DJ Zaza.

“I’m bringing this full searching working experience in which you experience at home and you don’t want to depart you have a cocktail and mimosa and you’re vibing with group and the artists in a distinct kind of way,” Currie explained. “It’s big for Recycled Present day and pretty essential.”

The shop will host a vacation art sale 1:30-5 p.m. Saturday, which serves as an afterparty of types for the Hyde Park Holly-Working day pageant, Currie stated. EWRKS will return for commissioned portraits at the party.

“It’s usually artists in here, and it is often a very good vibe,” Currie said of Saturday’s occasion.

Shari Currie discusses the artwork featured in Recycled Modern’s Hyde Park location, which include parts by Martha Wade, Casey Stanberry, David Ellis — also recognized as Ewrks — and Ciera C. Currie is donning earrings by jewelry and accessories organization Identified Objects, which also sells out of Recycled Modern.

Artwork from area creators, household décor and home furnishings on display screen at Recycled Modern-day in Hyde Park.

The Hyde Park store is Recycled Modern’s second place. Currie opened her very first retail outlet in 2018 at 1152 W. Diversey Parkway in Lakeview.

The company’s thought stems from Currie’s adore of classic browsing, which she uncovered by means of a “process of grief” as she healed traumas from growing up on the South Facet, she stated.

“I basically did not like thrifting when I was youthful, simply because it was a have to have — it was not pleasurable, it was far more so out of necessity,” Currie stated. “It was this transition of grieving how I grew up in Englewood and not definitely appreciating the neighborhood like I needed to.”

Even as Currie grew to appreciate thrifting, Chicago lacked vintage outlets where by “I felt like I was at property,” she mentioned. With the assistance of a mentor, she labored to fill that hole by selling at pop-ups across Chicago in advance of opening the Lakeview brick-and-mortar.

A single these types of stop was at the Hyde Park Flea marketplace in Harper Court in 2018, where Currie bought from a booth specifically in front of the keep she’d move into quite a few several years afterwards.

The Harper Court docket keep “was obtainable, so I noticed it and I’m like, I simply cannot not get it,” Currie claimed. “It was sort of divine — I was outdoors the front of this room when I started.”

The South Facet store requires in excess of for the Lakeview location as the company’s flagship for home decor and furnishings, Currie reported. She plans to continue on a gradual system of turning the North Side store into an art gallery with a modest, committed area for household furniture, she claimed.

The Lakeview store “will search a lot distinctive than what this household foundation, flagship retail outlet [in Hyde Park] seems like — it is undoubtedly gallery-focused,” Currie mentioned.

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