Cheryl Shops

Website of the week
On Sunday, I decided to take advantage of the gorgeous weather and walk down to P&S in Tribeca to get some cheapie yarn. But while I love P&S, that's not the website of the week. Next door, I came across a super-cool--if somewhat shady--furniture store, White. It's super-cool because the warehouse-like store is filled, floor to ceiling, with midcentury modern reproduction furniture, but slightly shady because the key word is "reproduction"--what they carry is basically knockoffs of furniture by Knoll, Herman Miller, Vitra, etc. Now, while I won't carry a Louis Vuitton knockoff, strangely enough, I have no problem putting, say, a knockoff Le Corbusier chaise in my apartment--especially when a leather version here is $475 (the "real" one is $1500 at Design Within Reach). The zippy website has everything I saw in the store (with the exception of the Mies van der Rohe Barcelona Chair and ottoman, which, oddly enough, didn't have a price tag in the store anyway), but I can't link to anything directly due to its flash setup. Still, midcentury moden enthusiasts, take a look and marvel at the ridiculously affordable prices: A Saarinen armchair for $200, an Eames lounge chair for $275, a Noguchi coffee table for $455, an arco lamp for $250, and so on. So it's not the "real thing," but at these prices, who the hell cares? Do your friends crawl under the table to look for the Knoll sticker? That's what I thought. White's motto is "bringing design to the masses"--certainly a more vaild motto than, oh, "Design Within Reach," don't you think?