Shop Local

by Rina Rapuano

New Vintage

Kristen Alcorta hadn’t planned on becoming a photo stylist and interior designer when she opened her Falls Church antiques shop, Pursuing Vintage, in 2017. The evolution just sort of happened.

It started when other designers began asking her to pull distinctive home accessories from her boutique to help tie their projects together. Next she was styling shoots for magazines like This Old House, including a recent cover. In January, she finally launched her own interior design business, Kristen Alcorta Interiors.

Her home furnishings shop is entirely online now, thanks to Covid, but Alcorta plans to keep it going and keep it fresh with a curated selection of things she loves—like a recently featured pair of brassbased candlesticks with groovy Lucite accents. She gravitates toward objects with “a little bit of mid-century flash, ’60s and ’70s flair” as well as baskets, boxes, vases and vessels featuring blue-and-white designs. Soon she’ll be adding nonvintage wares like throw blankets and custom pillows to the mix. Prices vary wildly, as one would expect with retro finds, but a recent peek at her collection showed home accessories ranging from $15 to $175.

“When I had the brick-and-mortar [shop] I would pull in some furniture pieces,” says Alcorta, who lives in Arlington with her husband and two children, “but being online, that’s not a direction I’m going anymore.”

These days, she observes, many folks who are bored with their surroundings are updating draperies and rugs rather than going for a full overhaul with new furniture. She’s also seeing clients incorporating the Grandmillennial style, which she describes as “bringing back a lot of those things that maybe were stylish from your grandma’s house,” such as rattan, florals and rich woods. “People are…mixing patterns and colors, which is more that retro sort of feel,” Alcorta says. “If it’s done well, it’s fun and it’s vibrant and it’s a little bit nostalgic, which is I think what people like about it.” pursuingvintage. com; kristenalcortainteriors.com

Decoupage oyster-shell dishes by Nafiart Studio

She Sells Seashells

The oyster shells Nafia Syeed embellishes with brightly patterned decoupage might be her current bestsellers, but the Falls Church artist has more than one trick up her sleeve. She’s been studying art ever since her mother enrolled her in an art school at around 8 years old in her hometown of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Nafia Syeed

“I’m actually an interdisciplinary artist, so I explore new fields of art and expand my horizons creatively,” she says, listing oil painting, sculpture, jewelry-making and resin art among her many skills.

Syeed and her husband moved to the D.C. area from Bangladesh in 2020 (for his work) with their two children. Since then, the industrious artist founded Nafiart Studio, creating her colorful oystershell dishes ($17–$25) along with jewelry made from butterfly wings encapsulated in resin ($22–$30). She works only with found butterflies that died of natural causes, which means their wings show imperfections like tears and discolorations.

“I always try to collect things from nature and turn them into a piece of art with my style,” says the artist. “I love nature’s vibrant colors.” In Virginia, she has been especially taken with the seasonal changes in the landscape—something she wasn’t accustomed to seeing in Bangladesh.

Syeed donates a dollar of each sale to the World Wildlife Fund and incorporates sustainable practices into some of her artwork—such as the earrings she recently started making out of recycled Bangladeshi wedding outfits her mother brings from home. She hopes her maximalist, colorful designs will bring a little magic to those who need it. “I want to inspire people to be more positive,” she says. “With my art, I want them to realize the blessings of nature.”

Next on her wish list of skills to master are mosaics, clay art and digital art. She’s currently adding hand-painted accent tables and jewelry boxes to her repertoire of online offerings, which can be found on Etsy, Amazon Handmade, Facebook and Instagram, in addition to her website. nafiartstudio.com