Frank Di Piazza
Brody’s Lamps and Accessories (2300 Big Bend, 314-647-3318, brodylamp.com) is something of an Aladdin’s cave, booby-trapped with crystal chandeliers, arcs of steel and halogen, crackled ginger jars, torchieres and sconces and pendants. Proceed carefully, elbows close to your sides, no handbags swinging, and pause every 5 seconds, because if you don’t, you will miss something.
“Designers love to come here, because it’s one-stop shopping,” says store manager Mary Price. (Brody’s does not reveal its owner’s name.) You can clothe every naked bulb in your house, then pick out mirrors, botanical prints, bookends, carved wooden boxes… The guiding theme is beauty, whatever the style or period. Prices range from a $60 celadon-striped floral lamp shaped like an urn to a $3,500 Minerva statue (she stands 5 feet tall and holds a little lantern).
Climb slowly to the second floor, where Brody’s feels less like a cave and more like an attic in a dream, filled with treasures. Walk calmly, letting your eyes scan the possibilities. Brody’s sells 5,000 lamps and 10,000 shades, but the best part is that nobody shoves a catalog at you and leaves you to flip through it for 45 minutes, panic rising. This shop’s been around for 78 years, and its salespeople will lead you through the friendly maze to a real-life lamp you can squint at, measure, hold up a swatch to.
The shop’s as homey as your living room. And if what you really want is a second life for your favorite lamp, Brody’s will repair it, rewire it, or attach a harp of a different height so you can use one of the new, vividly colored contemporary shades. Just bring the lamp. “People come without it,” Ms. Price says, “which is like buying a hat without your head! The drops are all different. But if we see the lamp, we can show them something they might never have thought of.”
There are more than 200 kinds of shades here: rows and rows of smooth or tucked or accordion-pleated shades; squares and bells and drums; dramatically thin rectangles, straight-sloped Empires, shades curved like the roof of a Chinese pagoda. The silk-fabric shades never go out of style; the tiny contemporary chandelier shades will make Aunt Lucille’s heirloom look like something you found in Paris last week.
And if somebody swung one too many times from your old chandelier, Brody’s carries new ones made of far more interesting materials, from naturally shed antlers to exotic carved wood to black crystal.
Even so, Brody’s isn’t trendy. “We’re getting more contemporary, but we stay away from the gimmicks,” Ms. Price says firmly. When everybody went giddy over halogen, she calmly pointed out that it was best for task lighting. Now she’s not even wild about compact fluorescents: “We don’t tout them, except for energy efficiency. Three-ways are still our best sellers—people like the ability to change the light’s intensity, and they give off a whiter light.” Price is convinced CFLs are just a transition to something better, a light that will be just as “green,” but purer and softer in color.
Speak your whims: You always wanted a Staffordshire lamp? Brody’s sells the Make-a-Lamp in a range of sizes (starting at $129), and you can set your Staffordshire spaniel on the base without damaging him. And don’t forget to explore the corner, where you’ll find a sort of jewelry cabinet filled with finials, which are to a lamp what long white gloves are to a strapless gown.
Brody’s understands elegance.
