For readers who haven't visited Kreatelier yet, we should explain that it has a three-part business model:
- they offer home interior services, including upholstery and window treatment fabrication.
- the retail store carries products Line & Pernilla developed themselves, plus compatible products developed by others. When you go in, you'll see a lot of things made from beautiful textiles, with a focus on personal organizers.
- in the back room they host sewing and crafts workshops for kids and adults. See the schedule of workshops and classes here. On days when the retail store is not open, they sometimes hold craft-themed birthday parties (though the demand for these has grown so great they have difficulty accommodating all the requests).
They have been equally welcomed by the neighborhood residents, many of whom have become customers. Hope Street attracts all types of walkers: college students, young families with strollers, single professionals. Kreatelier's high eye-candy factor draws everyone in sooner or later. "People stop in all the time just to say 'Hi'." After the better part of a year in business, the store is still greeting first-time customers from the surrounding neighborhood.
Kreatelier also connects locally by contracting local services. The Groden Center provides a window-washing service, and the shop donates fabric remnants, packing materials and other re-usable cast-offs to Recycling for RI Education, a non-profit that takes clean, re-usable materials and recycles them to local schools, teachers and students as raw materials for art projects. In addition, the flowers in the barrel out front are from the Groden Center, and the new sidewalk trash containers on the street were fabricated at the Steelyard (the installation of both was facilitated by Hope Street Merchants Assocation, of which Kreatelier is a member).
Have you visited Kreatelier yet? What's your favorite thing about shopping on Hope Street? Tell us in the comments.
Great! I love Kreatelier!!!
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