Happy place SOCIETY SOCIAL BRINGS ITS PREPPY-CHIC DESIGNS TO SOUTH END WITH THE OPENING OF ITS FIRST BRICK-AND-MORTAR STORE. BY CATHY MARTIN • PHOTOGRAPHS BY RICHARD ISRAEL STYLED BY WHITLEY ADKINS HAMLIN • HAIR AND MAKEUP BY JOSIAH REED
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tep into Society Social’s new flagship store in Atherton Mill, and you might feel more like you’re in Palm Beach than Charlotte. Pass under the canvas awning through the bright pink double doors, and you’ll find yourself in an airy space packed with pastel chairs and sofas, rattan lamps and mirrors, and a myriad of other colorful accessories hand-picked by owner and creative director Roxy Owens and her team. Inside the 20-foot baby-blue pagoda in the center of the store — a nod to the chinoiserie designs often found in Society Social’s products — rows of color and fabric swatches line the wall. Elsewhere on the walls, you’ll find paintings by Southern women artists, including Nashville-based Kayce Hughes, Birmingham-based Liz Lane, as well as Charlotte’s own Windy O’Connor. Pale-pink-and-white gingham floors were hand-painted by Charlotte installation artist Kathryn Godwin of Studio Cultivate. Custom Brunschwig & Fils draperies adorn the windows, an exclusive French blue version of the popular Les Touches fabric design. And then there’s the Sedgewick bar cart. You might walk right past it without a glance, but this handcrafted, faux-bamboo cart is where it all began.
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wens started Society Social in 2011 after several years working in the fashion industry, including in the buying division at the Belk department-store chain. AMC’s Mad Men was wildly popular, and the TV show set in 1960s Manhattan was beginning to influence everything from men’s fashion to home decor. But one midcentury staple that figures prominently in the show — the bar cart — had all but vanished from furniture showrooms. Around the same time, the recession had taken a toll on the retail industry, including Owens’ parents’ furniture business in Hickory. The Te family started the company in the Philippines when they were right out of college. “They took out loans, they had us, and we lived in the factory when we were kids,” says Owens, the oldest of four siblings. By the time she turned 5, the family had moved to Hickory to open an upholstery plant, making furniture under private labels for big U.S. retailers. “I kind of felt helpless during the worst, when the economy started to crash,” Owens says. “Because [my parents’] business really relied on other people’s businesses. And it was just devastating to see all the companies around us ... so many people closed down. So 68
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