West Broadway Street Storefront

This was the last NYC storefront installation in 1998 on West Broadway Street at Duane Street. It was built during a time when New York City’s crumbling infrastructure was a topical issue, and the installation mimicked an archaeological site. The backdrop of walls, floors, and ceilings was covered in concrete board. We collected chunks of the old streets of lower Manhattan, remnants of deteriorating buildings, and slabs of metal, concrete, and wood from throughout the city, which we then composed and used as fixtures. There was a mezzanine, like in other storefront installations, where the small factory was displayed, seen, and heard to remind us of the human labor that goes into making garments and celebrating the people who create them. This marked a remarkable, metaphorical ending to the series of storefront installations and years of design projects that embraced forms of adaptive reuse as a commentary on our fragile environment.

Puett took on a business partner in 1998, which allowed her to continue working on projects about the histories of design and the needle trade industries. However, the partner fired her from the new company in 2001. After that, the commercial garment designs were not Puett’s, though many patterns and labels were still used. 

 Meanwhile, in 2000, Puett had a child with artist Mark Dion, whom she had been with since 1994. More collaborations and new histories began, and exhibitions continued in museums, contemporary art centers, and galleries worldwide for another two decades. These projects were shifting away from commercial trade. Yet, Puett was still designing for an ecologically minded 21st-century. Some of these projects, installations, and collaborations will appear here next, so keep following.