When the Carroll Gardens storefront next to Loren Sosna’s sunny home-furnishings shop, Environment337, became available earlier this year, she seized on the opportunity to explore a darker style of décor. After four months of renovations, she unveiled Retrospect earlier this month, a moody jewelry, gift, and home-décor shop evoking the Gilded Age. Touting an aesthetic she describes as run-down mansion meets haunted house, the dimly lit store offers an eclectic trove of furnishings and accessories sourced from Europe and South America, as well as Stateside flea markets and antique dealers. Vintage rosaries dangle from mounted antlers, nineteenth-century textile paintings are housed in Italian brass frames, and vials of shark teeth are shelved beside pretty soaps and journals. With its shades perpetually drawn, it’s an anomaly among a slew of girly boutiques on the Smith Street drag. Nevertheless, the mysterious new shop beckons a clientele ranging from interior designers to freshly inked passersby from the tattoo parlor down the street. Click through the slideshow to check out some of our favorite accessories and finds.
Retrospect, 333 Smith St., nr. Carroll St. (718-522-1767); T–S (11–7), Su (11–5).
