The God of Small Things

Designer/ trend setter Federico de Vera opens his chic and secret new gallery on 81st Street in New York City. Delicious. Come with me for a visit.

I’ve known and admired Federico de Vera for perhaps twenty years. Longer!

He opened a series of startlingly original and trend-setting design, jewelry, and glass galleries in San Francisco. Then he left us bereft when he decamped to New York six years ago. Fans like Giorgio Armani, Valentino with Giancarlo Giammetti, rock stars, authors, stylists, design editors, marketing guru Sam Shahid, Bruce Weber and Nan Bush, and all of the ultra-private global style-setters descended and became loyal clients.

I wrote about Federico de Vera’s legendary NoLita gallery at 1 Crosby Street, New York, a few months ago on THE STYLE SALONISTE.

I also showed you an exclusive look at Federico’s SoHo loft here on THE STYLE SALONISTE.

Now Federico has made a dazzling new move—opening a fabulous bijou gallery, tiny and discreet, at 81st and Madison. So chic!

Go there immediately.

"Architecture was a fine, formal training that focused and clarified what I wanted to do with my life," said de Vera. "I learned about balance and harmony, contrast and juxtaposition. In the Philippines I also gained an understanding of fine craftsmanship and a very understated, almost meditative approach. Good design and room composition are about rigorous editing, staying true to my own aesthetic, and using color with great discretion." –Federico de Vera

International arts and antiques dealer Federico de Vera is a connoisseur of color, form and dimension. His fine-tuned aesthetic sense is especially evident at his new Upper East Side store, de Vera, where eclectic Venetian sculptures, Indian diamonds, Botticelli-inspired jewels, Asian religious objects, miniscule and dainty and exquisite antiques and rarities are showcased. Call him a dream weaver.

“I wanted a simple romantic interior with a timeless aura so that each object could be savored,” said de Vera, whose jewelry selections are exclusive to his two galleries. De Vera himself can often be seen uptown or downtown, handbeading a necklace or sketching a pendant or pearl earrings.

The shop’s free-spirited decor includes tough-chic concrete floors, cerused mahogany counters, buff plaster walls, antique vitrines, and glorious boiserie walls.

One-of-a-kind objets d’art include delicate nephrite bowls, hand-woven silk textiles, a Roman pot, Orientalist Art Deco vases, and delicate old gilded statues from the Philippines and India. In the elegant mix: hand-blown Venetian glass bowls (perfect for pampered goldfish), and fragments of Balinese religious carvings.

The small jewel-like store looks like an ethnographic museum, with display cases of Indian bowls, carved mother-of-pearl spoons, Philippine mortars, pre-Hispanic Philippine gold ornaments, and fragments of ancient Japanese tools.

Oh, and be sure to ask about de Vera’s new two-volume book set, just published, on his jewelry and objects. It’s fabulously elegant and original. (I’m not exactly objective. I wrote an essay on perception for one of the volumes.)

Be sure to secure or order the boxed set. All of de Vera’s ultra-private clients are clamoring for it, and it was printed in a very limited edition, with a de Vera collage, each one of a kind, enclosed.

The God of Small Things:  In his new 81st Street/Madison Avenue store, Federico de Vera delights in arranging necklaces, vintage Venetian glass, rare books, jewelry and quirky antiques in mesmerizing compositions. In the petite light-filled gallery he displays delicate and rare antique Venetian glass, Dutch and French portraits, de Vera handcrafted jewelry, and other beautiful objects from around the world. With this new gallery brings his special luster, originally, eccentricity and grace to a gracious uptown address.

De Vera

26 East 81st Street

(at Madison)

New York City

212-288-2288

Photo credit: 

All photographs by Don Freeman, exclusively for de Vera. Used with express permission.