FoundRae Fine Jewelry
Dallas, Texas

The Conservatory is a 40-foot-tall former-elevator-tower-turned-floral-shop, now luxury retail emporium. The collaboration between The Conservatory and FoundRae was born from a shared interest to reimagine a retail experience rooted in an appreciation for curation, memories, and discovery. Spacesmith worked in close collaboration with Beth Hutchens, creative director and founder of FoundRae, to realize the store’s design. Our role was to create a physical manifestation of Beth’s vision and the resulting shop, which is grounded in extensive research, represents our interpretation of a traditional library with a contemporary twist. Throughout the project, our team remained intent on delivering Hutchens’ vision of a small map room within the cocoon of a great library.

Our team brought FoundRae’s concept to life through a combination of custom and vintage millwork, all with a nod to historic libraries and map rooms. Our team referenced traditional bookcases and glass displays as inspiration for the details. FoundRae’s collections demand displays with the capacity to communicate their emotional and spiritual depth. The fine jewelry brand’s narratives are shared visually via menageries: intricate, curated assemblages consisting of everything from photographs and figurines to torn pages and stamped wax.

In the label’s New York City store, these menageries are arranged in horizontal cases; the Dallas store, with just one-fifth the square footage, required a different approach.

To capitalize on the small shop’s merchandizing potential, our team designed cases that make use of both horizontal and vertical surfaces: Window displays give passersby a peak at FoundRae’s collections and feature bases that double as bookshelves. In the center of the room, a table wrapped in custom-printed leather doubles as a cash wrap and an area for jewelry assembly.

Meanwhile, the three large cases adorning the shop’s interior walls were designed with flexibility in mind, a requirement for Hutchens’ rotating and unpredictable menageries. Each case frames a set of hand-wrapped leather panels in colors that correlate with the FoundRae tenets. Custom walnut shelves and crescent moons provide opportunities for the display of jewelry and unexpected found objects that FoundRae curates each season. The Dallas store, its second retail outpost, celebrates the intriguing juxtaposition of old and new, high and low. The resulting shop is luxurious and inviting, grand and humbling.