She and Vernon credited Jamestown associate Toni Williams for seeing them through, helping to convince skeptical higher-ups that a small boutique owned by two queer Black women-with no brick-and-mortar experience and no conglomerate financial backer-was a worthy addition to the building. “Those (brands) have the funds to say, ‘whatever you’re asking, we’ll double it,’” Bryant said. Ponce City Market has a long waitlist of would-be renters, and small, independent brands struggle to compete with giant retailers like Nike, which opened one of its signature “Live” stores at Ponce City Market last December. When Vernon and Bryant pitched for a spot, they won over several Jamestown team-members, who doggedly advocated for them in a process that dragged on for months.
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That said, securing a permanent store in the coveted commercial hub was no small feat. That dedication to its core customer base, along with Souk Bohemian’s lush, tour du monde aesthetic, made it an appealing tenant for Ponce City Market, owned by Jamestown Group. “It has to be reflective of us and our customer-she’s everyone, but our core customers are Black women,” Bryant said.
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They routinely change out designs, Vernon and Bryant explained, but you’ll always find minimalist portraits of Black and brown-featured faces: Souk Bohemian is, first and foremost, inspired by and for women of color. Souk Bohemian also produces a branded apparel line, featuring designs by a small roster of Black women artists. “But we figured it out!” Vanessa Coore Vernon and Morgan Ashley Bryant “It was difficult translating the European and American sizes,” Bryant said. To procure the shoes for sale in the store, he and Bryant hammered out the trade details via WhatsApp translator. The goat-hair mules, which Bryant had spotted on Instagram, were the handiwork of a Moroccan craftsman who spoke little English. “She’s our good luck,” Vernon said fondly). Merchandise rotates: on a recent visit, one could peruse hand-woven caps from Ukraine, prêt-à-porter linen sets from Bali, and hundred-year-old ceramic vessels from Turkey (a two-hundred-year-old vessel, standing sentry in front of the dressing room, had been authorized for export by the Turkish national museum and was not for sale.
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“It’s like you kind of get to travel without the passport.”īryant runs business operations, but both partners source goods for the store, an eclectic process that spans the entire globe. “Everything in here is to be touched and looked at and explored,” Vernon said of the store. Souk Bohemian merges the aesthetics of those namesake markets with elements of free-spirited style and design. Vernon, who handles the business’ curatorial end, had earlier traveled to Morocco to source rugs, where she was dazzled by the sprawling, colorful outdoor markets known as souks. They name, they explained, evokes the brand’s juncture of global style and individual expression. But since that first lonely sweatshirt, Souk Bohemian has flourished. As a venture of two Black, queer women, Vernon and Bryant weren’t sure how things would go. The pair launched Souk Bohemian as on online market in 2016-“With one lonely sweatshirt!” Bryant recalled, laughing. Vernon and her co-owner, Morgan Ashley Bryant, are also best friends: both from Northern California, they met in Atlanta while working at the retailer Anthropologie and shared dreams of starting a creative enterprise. Souk Bohemian’s doors had just opened a few days before, but customers were already spilling in-one of the many perks of a securing a permanent location in foot traffic-heavy market. That’s the idea, said co-owner Vanessa Coore Vernon on a recent visit to the store. On one wall, shelves of dark-stained wood boast a vertiginous selection of handcrafted ceramic vessels, each with an air of far-flung glamour. The store’s palette is an elegantly muted range of earth tones, but the goods for sale burst with textile diversity, from slide-on mules made of goat hair to rounded incense holders carved from soapstone. The whitewashed walls and low-slung tables evoke the arid climates of the Maghreb, while Moroccan singers lilt in French through subtly concealed speakers.
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To cross the threshold of Souk Bohemian (styled as Souk Bō’hēmian), Ponce City Market’s newest boutique, is to be transported half a world away.