Maryam Nassir Zadeh

Maryam Nassir Zadeh is a gallery like boutique just on the outskirts of the guided-tour heavy Lower East Side. It's the kind of space you have to live in New York to know about, or perhaps get lucky and pass by on happenstance.

The store blurs the line between a boutique and a gallery. For instance, the cover of their website presents a gorgeous glass sculpture by Philip Low. Clothing for men and women hang adjacent to modernist sculpture, while tables of sculptural jewelry sit alongside vintage accessories and ephemera.

The artistry of the boutique reminds us of De Vera in Soho which similar to Maryam Nassir Zadeh sells a variety of one-of-a-kind curiosities. But what makes Maryam Nassir Zadeh unlike anything we have seen in New York is that they are able to bring this kind of high-end curatorial eye to the space but make it contemporary at the same time. These are not priceless Italian baroque church relics--the items sold in Maryam Nassir Zadeh are very present, very relevant, and very in-touch if not a year or two ahead of their time. You can feel Zadeh's direct connection to store with her textiles that fill the space with warmth and dismiss the conservative ultra modernist appeal of bigger stores like Jil Sander. This is not your grandmother's modernist boutique.