Coryander and Friends Mix it Up at Parachute Market

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Where there is a design happening in LA, there is Mallery Roberts Morgan, with her camera and pen. Her most recent destination: Coryander Friend’s Parachute Market, whose theme on this…

Where there is a design happening in LA, there is Mallery Roberts Morgan, with her camera and pen. Her most recent destination: Coryander Friend’s Parachute Market, whose theme on this second outing for the market was “elemental,” described as being ”rooted in the periodic table of elements that comprise our earth.”

CoryanderCoryander Friend (don’t you just love that name) is a set designer.  She has a shop called Storefront in Downtown Los Angeles that is sort-of-kind-of-sometimes open, because as she explained to me this weekend, it’s hard for her to stay put in one place all day, she’s so accustomed to moving from project to project.  With the realisation that what she really likes is to gather and curate (she’s also wondering what a cool new word is for curate) she came up with the idea of Parachute Market.  The first one was four months ago.  This weekend was the second.  She had originally planned for it to be a quarterly event however she’s now thinking it will probably be best to do it twice a year.

JFChenThe market is held in a fabulously high-ceilinged warehouse in the Arts District in DTLA.  It’s mostly small vendors doing crafty things such as Sam Roberts LA (who deconstructs, then reconstructs vintage with a Western twang; John Dennis, the man behind Sam Roberts, is shown with “elemental” grisly red beard, below right.)  At the fair were ceramics, wood working, leather, a big vintage clothes section as well as a few hand-picked food vendors such as Handsome Coffee and the uber trendy Moon Juice.

Jared LetoWhat really made this second market exciting was the addition of three very important LA dealers.  They told me they liked the vibe and people of the last market so much they wanted to show support for this one.

Legendary antiques dealer Joel Chen (JF Chen) brought an eclectic assortment of pieces including works by the LA artist Clare Graham and designer Tanya Aguiniga; in the photo above left, Coryander stands by Graham’s work: stuffed animals in vacuum pack with string webbing around them. In image below, Jared Leto sports a terrific T-shirt bearing the (ironic?) slogan: “Depressed Rich Kids.”

Gerard O’Brien of Reform Gallery, a leading dealer in the US for modern California art and furniture, showed pieces from the 60s, 70s and 80s, aesthetic precursors to the contemporary craft at the fair.

The Window, another top-notch LA dealer for highly collectable furniture and objects, showed a stunning group of iron sculptures from the 60s – 80s.

The combination of Coryander’s curated collection of hip, talented makers and a few establishment dealers, in a stunning Arts District venue, made for an original, fun and smart convergence of some excellent people and things.

You can find this story and more on Mallery Roberts Morgan’s blog, here.