Showroom style at your fingertips

Paul Clinton

Modernist furniture is the name of the game at Design Within

Reach, Fashion Island’s newest up-scale retailer.

The shop, referred to as a studio by its managers, sells similarly

modernist furniture to the public that the Laguna Design Center sells

to dealers and others, store manager Paul Schminsky said.

“A lot of the product we have was available only in showrooms,”

Schminsky said. “There’s really nowhere else in Orange County that

carries this kind of product.”

Much of the furniture the shop sells comes right out of the

modernist furniture movement inspired by architect Frank Lloyd Wright

in the early 20th Century and practiced by a handful of commercial

designers.

It’s familiar the instant you walk into the spacious shop.

The curving metal stem of the Arco floor lamp, with a thin rainbow

that heads toward a bulbous lamp, rings familiar. You can pick one up

for $1,950.

You can also find a Mies van der Rohe Pavilion chair and ottoman,

for $2,745. The chair’s cross-hatch leather seat is a familiar sight

in office waiting rooms since 1929.

One of the chairs the shop sells, Le Coubusier’s chaise lounge,

made an appearance in the new James Bond film “Die Another Day.” Made

from cowhide, the chair retails for $1,350.

Design Within Reach started as a catalog company in 1997, founded

by professional designer Rob Forbes. The private company launched a

Web portal three years ago to sell its wares and has been slowly

opening “bricks-and-mortar” locations.

Now operating as a “clicks-and-bricks” outlet, the San

Francisco-based retailer is billing itself as a simpler way to

purchase quality modern furniture.

Managers at the Fashion Island shop, which does not have a cash

register, will ship orders to homes and offices usually in no longer

that six weeks.

The shop, which opened Nov. 14, has been able to build up a solid

corporate clientele in fairly short order.

“We have had a lot of success with the corporate clients because

of our delivery and set pricing,” Schminsky said. “We’re not solely

residential.”