When Emma Prince shops for gifts, she doesn’t travel to the mall. She stops by Urban Matter (4704 Virginia, 314-456-6941), a small shop in south St. Louis.
“The store is so varied, I can shop for my girlfriends and for my dad in the same store. At Christmas I bought great soaps, which are handmade in St. Louis,” Prince says. “Today, I’m picking up Field Notes, the Missouri edition. I have two friends who are archivists, and they love the format of these notebooks.”
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Owners Mary Hennesy and Amy Schafer cultivate repeat customers like Prince, who enjoy shopping at the little store with a big sense of style, with in-store events, trunk shows, and participation in community festivals. The store’s eclectic product mix includes jewelry, watches, lotions and soaps, unusual handbags, and a smattering of clothes, socks, scarves, and shoes from a wide selection of indie artisans, local and national.
“We like handmade things,” Hennesy says. “People come in and say ‘I make these things’ and end up with work in the shop. Like these bird ceramic dishes by Bridget McDermott Flood from Carondelet Pottery. We use them to hold jewelry, but they also work as a spoon rest.”
Hennesy cleverly displays the bird dishes next to Home Tweet Home handmade cards, the brainchild of local artist Carolyn Lewis. Lewis recycles old atlases her grandfather collected to cut site-specific bird shapes for her notecards.
Look for sleek jewelry designs by metalsmiths Lisa Colby, Kelly Draper, and Kelly Miller Robinson of Hammerstone Metals. Check out shibori and hand-knitted goods from Angela Malchionno of The Enamel Project.
Urban Matter brings in products from across the country as well, like Seattle artist Linda Dillion’s beadwork triple-strand necklace or Texas artist Mike Draper’s hand-turned wood or acrylic resin razors in safety and Mach 3 versions. One notable and nice oddity: bars of Otter Wax from Portland, Oregon used to protect fashionable canvas and leather goods.
Don’t miss the case of Jord watches. The classic watches feature bands and cases of smoothly turned wood in styles as androgynous as they are beautiful.
Fashionable choices for the home include custom-designed lighting by Urban Matter, textiles, and ceramic and classic enamelware from Crow Canyon. Dress out your home bar with cocktail shakers and the popular Snakebite bottle and can opener, in addition to custom-made beer and wine totes.
Everything at Urban Matter reveals the sure hands of owners Schafer and Hennesy. They designed and built the store with salvaged and weathered boards, old signs, driftwood, and slabs of tree trunk that display earrings and necklaces, bracelets, and money clips. The lively assemblages Hennesy curates from their estimable collections showcase the goods from indie and established designers to their advantage. Hennesy changes up the stock often. “We’re a small store. When people come in to shop they need to see new things,” she says.
