More detailed info on the C&B stores, and a couple others doing the same thing on Saturday:
Saturday, December 4, 2004
Shopping for Life
Sponsored by Neiman Marcus
Shop on December 4th at the following stores and a portion of your sale will be donated to Whitman-Walker Clinic
Crate & Barrel
Montgomery Mall, Bethesda, MD
Fashion Centre at Pentagon City, Arlington, VA
The Market Common, Arlington, VA
Tysons Corner, Vienna, VA
4820 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC
go mama go!**
1809 14th Street, NW
Lambda Rising
1625 Connecticut Avenue, NW
**
Go Mama Go! write-up from the Post:
There's a new store owner on 14th Street who means business. Go mama go! is the name of the store as well as an apt description of its Thai owner Noi Chudnoff: In the past two years since her son left home, she's progressed from proprietor of a small stand at the Eastern Market piled with green and blue Japanese dinnerware to a 2,400-square-foot store at 1809 14th St. "The second largest retail space in the area after Fresh Fields," she insists proudly.
Noi has set up shop -- not by accident -- right next to street pioneer Home Rule. She has uncovered the windows of the former thrift shop and, like her neighbor, installed the roll-down security gate discreetly out of view, giving pedestrians a much-needed opportunity to do a little window shopping in the area.
Working closely with a local architect, Noi has created a space that reflects her Eastern sensibilities. The exterior is a Japanese-barn red, accented by a large black window frame and a specially designed and surprisingly delicate-looking black gate in front of the door.
The eclectic mix of merchandise on sale inside gives the place the feel of a small multinational bazaar. If the space is reminiscent of an indoor Eastern Market, this might also be because she has brought a small bit of it with her. A bamboo shoot vendor from the market sits in one corner and art by some of her old neighbors hangs on the pale yellow walls. The focus of her merchandise remains dinnerware; but the sheer size of the space has forced her to branch out. Everything is arranged on tables and bookcases, most of which are also for sale.
Bright fabrics from Mozambique share space with colored crystal glassware from the Czech Republic, ceramics from Tunisia, pastel plates from California that resemble sea glass and, of course, Japanese dinnerware -- some imported and some designed by Noi herself and made in the United States. Furniture of her own design is also in the works.
On one table, spread out with all the care of her other merchandise, is a collection of vintage dinner plates with U.S. state names, the kind of souvenirs you might pick up at small-town gift shops across the nation. Noi shows these off with an expression of guilty pleasure on her face. "Beautiful but different" is Noi's explanation for what ties it all together.
Noi is an aggressive businesswoman and proud of it. Her store is barely open for a day before she talks of other plans for the block. She left Thailand to study in the United States because she felt her career options were limited back home and always somehow dependent on a husband. "There women walk two steps behind the man," she says. She thinks for a moment and adds, laughing, "But maybe it's because we want to kick them."
-- Christian Moen
