Photography by Greg Gillis & Jim Newberry
The Elements of Success
by Lisa Shames | CS magazine | August 26, 2011Surviving a quarter of a century in the fickle retail business is no easy task. But to hear Jeannine Dal Pra and Toby Glickman, owners of jewelry/accessories/home furnishings store Elements, tell it, it’s fairly simple. “We’ve just bought things we love,” says Glickman. “That’s always been our formula and how we’ve stuck to it all these years.”
It doesn’t hurt that these two have a sixth sense when it comes to knowing what their customers want even before they know it themselves. To wit: Elements was the first shop in Chicago to carry Mulberry handbags and the first to feature jewelry from Alexis Bittar, Pomellato and Iradj Moini, among others. “We buy what moves us,” says Dal Pra.
To help celebrate the 25-year milestone, some of the “hidden talent” the duo have discovered over the years will be stopping by the Wells Street store on Oct. 14 and 15 for trunk shows and other special events. The guest list for the two days of events includes Moini, Italian ceramist Christiane Perrochon, jewelry designer Patricia von Musulin, and Paris-based Ria and Yiouri Augousti, who Dal Pra first spotted years ago at a small show in England early on in their career; Elements became one of the first U.S. retailers to feature the husband-and-wife team’s cutting-edge pieces, which includes furniture, home accessories, jewelry and handbags.
However, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Glickman and Dal Pra, who met through a mutual friend when they both worked for large retailers and then decided to pool their money and go out on their own. They opened their first store on Wells Street in the current location of Karyn’s Cooked, then moved to Oak Street in 1994. When they were forced to move out of their Oak Street shop due to redevelopment of the building, their future wasn’t so rosy. “We didn’t know what was going to happen,” says Glickman.
But the new location they eventually moved into four years ago tripled the size of the former store to 4,000 square feet, allowing for more drool-worthy items and the addition of an über-modern coffee bar. Says Dal Pra, “We still pinch ourselves that we’ve been able to take something so little and create something so big.”
