Mongo

Profile

Brooklyn-based design team Julie and Tom Diller opened this Carroll Gardens shop in summer 2007 as a home base for their ohm clothing line, a collection of breezy dresses, gauzy shirts, and tiered skirts in silks and chiffons. The store’s offerings have since expanded to include apparel, accessories, and home décor from a host of local designers, with a focus on environmentally friendly, recycled, and reused materials. Glass cases line the weathered blue walls, bearing bracelets made from vintage typewriter keys, chunky, découpage necklaces, and earrings incorporating antique coins. The handbag selection is particularly inventive, with black totes by Colorado-based label English Retreads made from old tires, seat belts, and semitruck-tire inner tubes, and Gecko Traders’ recycled market bags crafted from Asian rice and feed bags. Customers flock from Manhattan and beyond for the selection of hard-to-find vegetable-dyed leather shoes by CYDWOQ, including eye-catching boots emblazoned with red hearts. The distinctive home furnishings are similarly unique and handmade, like jewelry boxes wrapped in the covers of vintage noir novels or �junk artwork�: wood panels covered in old faucets, door handles, and other hardware. — Jacquelyn Lewis