Love, Adorned

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After dreaming of opening her own boutique for years, Lori Leven launched Love, Adorned in December 2010. The well-curated treasure trove carries hand-crafted jewelry, home goods, Filson travel accessories, and even the occasional dream catcher. Well-worn rugs and couches piled with pillows by Laura Megroy soften the shop’s concrete floors. Incense perfumes the air and a tattoo parlor functions quietly in the back, an extension of Leven’s tattoo shop on Second Avenue called New York Adorned. Jewelry covers hand-hewn shelves throughout the store, crafted by designers like Lola Brooks, Kiki Smith, Nick Potash, and Suzannah Wainhouse. But these things of beauty aren’t just pretty baubles; Leven describes the goods she stocks as tools for life. �People need to have beauty around them, I get that,� she explains, �but it’s good to have some sort of function behind it.� She unites utility and art in vintage glassware, ceramics by Michele Quan and Laura Zindel, and two-foot maple cutting boards that look more like slices of the trees they came from than kitchenware. Hand-carved scrimshaw pocket knives from Maine are a particularly hot item, along with bath products by Baxter and natural cleaning supplies from The Laundress (like a gentle cashmere shampoo) round-out the inventory. — Elien Becque

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