The Frank & Eileen Showroom: An Ode to Ireland in LA - Remodelista
Photographs by Torkil Stavdal. Audrey McLoghlin’s shirt company, Frank & Eileen, is named after her Irish grandparents. “My parents emigrated to the States in the late 1970s and were the first in our family to make a huge sacrifice for the American dream. It’s something I’m so thankful for. And because of this, I felt the collection had to be made in the US–it’s my way of paying it forward.” To celebrate Frank & Eileen’s five-year anniversary and burgeoning success, the company has just moved into a proper home–one that’s spread over 6,800 square feet and designed to evoke an old Irish country house. The space started as a wide-open loft with exposed brick and a buckling Sheetrock ceiling. “A lovely man in LA, Mr. Lester Anderson, makes benches out of old chairs,” Weir says. The grand hall is 11 1/2 feet wide and 40 feet long. A 20-foot-tall olive tree stands in the center of the grand hall. In the archive/design room, the full collection of Frank & Eileen’s shirts over the years are displayed on hangers suspended on jute twine hung from hooks in the ceiling. Designers work in the archive room on Borges Zinc-Topped Tables by Zentique. The showroom is anchored by a Lenox Charcoal Wool Woven Rug from Dash and Albert. Frank & Eileen’s latest women’s and men’s collections are displayed on wooden dowels suspended from 1 1/2-inch marine rope. Go to Frank & Eileen to see the company’s designs. Above L: A detail of the twine-tied rope. Weir made the hanging bars from closet dowels and capped them with wooden finials from a hardware store. Buyers who come to Frank & Eileen’s are offered tea and biscuits–and can take a seat at the in-house tea bar. The cafe table is a Habitat for Humanity find that Weir painted gray and positioned against the two-toned brick. Above L: A wall of the tea bar is a Frank & Eileen scrapbook of sorts, decorated with what McLoghlin describes as “family photos, love letters, wedding announcements, and old Irish sayings.” Weir gathered the frames at flea markets. Above R: The metal and leather bar stools came from Olde Good Things. The dramatic dining room features a wall collage made from Frank & Eileen shirt fabrics mounted on poster board and glued onto two connected sheets of plywood. The galvanized light came from the Fairfax Flea Market, in LA. The bathroom has beadboard wainscoting and a floor of light Carrara marble tiles from Home Depot. Weir found the mirror at the Rose Bowl Flea Market and flanked it with Edison Caged Sconces from Restoration Hardware. Weir used old windows to build a house-like peaked entrance off the elevator. Rows of ivy, succulents, and other greenery are displayed on scaffolding. Presented in rows, they impart a country feel to the top of the loft building.