What makes a purchase “worth it”? The answer is different for everybody, so we’re asking some of the coolest, most shopping-savvy people we know—from small-business owners to designers, artists, and actors—to tell us the story behind one of their most prized possessions.
Who?
It’s hard to think about the barometer for cool in New York City’s downtown scene without referencing Passerby. Since its inception in 2015, founder Clémence Polès has been photographing subjects—think designers to scientists to activists and in-between—at ease in their homes. “There’s an added depth and intimacy about seeing the home of a stranger,” shares Clémence. “And the environment they surround themselves with when they are not ‘performing’ in the outside world.” Interviews highlight their processes, artistic or otherwise, and images serve as a peek into the private universes we keep behind closed doors. She finds that beyond the words exchanged or objects curated lies a “sort of truth that comes out that you could never get from their words.”
What?
Vivid memories of the rugs that filled her grandparents’ home in Tehran fill Clémence’s mind when she recalls her lifelong proximity to Persian rugs. “There was no surface left uncovered,” she remembers. Moving across towns and homes, her childhood was set on many stages with one consistent set piece—the silk Persian rug from Kashan that Clémence’s grandfather gifted to her mother on her wedding day.
In a devastating turn of events, the would-be family heirloom was sold to pay off Clémence’s father’s gambling debts. Building a home in New York City, decades later, it was important for Clémence to bring a Persian rug back into her space. Though instead of receiving one as a wedding gift, she purchased herself a rug upon separating from her then husband.
When and where?
Days spent combing through Etsy led Clémence to at least a starting point: She knew affording a 100% silk Persian rug was out of the question. Instead, she started sorting by coloring, looking for something that was dark and warm in its palette, just like her mother’s. “I had a whole system of adding rugs to my Etsy wishlist and revisiting them a couple of days later to see whether I still loved them,” she recalls. Drawn to Hamadan rugs—known for deep colors and geometric designs—Clémence notes that “there are over 1,500 distinct villages in and around the city of Hamadan, and each village creates an average of two different styles of rugs, so there’s a lot of variety even amongst Hamadan rugs.”