ANGIE’S ART SPACE
Warhol & Basquiat ties to her LES shop
Angelina Jolie’s new fashion venture is open for business inside a historic two-story building on the Lower East Side once owned by Andy Warhol and famously occupied by street-art pioneer Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Cutting the ribbon in December, Atelier Jolie is part high-end retail boutique and part arts space, billed on its website as “a place for creative people to collaborate with a skilled and diverse family of expert tailors, pattern makartisans ers and from around the world” in a letter penned by the Oscar-winning actress, 48.
It also has a café, opened in partnership with Eat Offbeat, an organization that hires from local refugee comto munities prepare regional fare from Syria, Sri Lanka, Venezuela and Senegal.
The café serves up a wide assortment of dishes highlighting global cuiincluding sine, chicken yassa, katarica curry bowls and a variety of fair-trade coffees and teas. They’re also taking orders on GrubHub.
The retail floor is staffed in part by students and graduates of the Parsons School of Design. Shoppers, who can visit by appointment only, will find items in a range of price points, from a $495 jacket with three interchange collars able to a silk A-line skirt at $195, according to Harper’s Bazaar.
Also available are $15 plain white T-shirts meant to be customized in-store with a vapaints, riety of add-on screen prints and patches. Proceeds from the sales of the patches go to charitable causes as well as the artists who created them.
Jolie admitted that she’ll “probably lose money, maybe even for a while,” on her store in an interview with WSJ Magazine.
“If I can eventually put into practice some things that I think are improvements and I just break even, that’s a huge victory,” she said.
Before the Oscar winner took over, the graffiti-covered building at 57 Great Jones St. was listed for lease with Meridian Capital Group for a $60,000 a month.
However, it wasn’t clear how much the actress, who reportedly signed an eight-year term, is paying to rent the space.
The building has a storied history even predating its art scene roots.
Built during the Civil War, it once served as the headquarters for infamous Five Points Gang ringleader Paul Kelly.
Andy’s star tenant
From 1970 to 1990, the building was owned by Andy Warhol Enterprises, which rented out the second-floor studio to neo-expressionist Basquiat, who lived and worked there from 1983 to 1988.
Basquiat died at 27 of a heroin overdose at the building in 1988. His reputation has skyrocketed since then, with several of his works fetching north of $100 million at auction.
Jolie says of the storied location, it’s “a privilege to be in this space.”