Set designer Jean Alan knows how to do mainstream, having out-fitted such film productions as “The Untouchables,” “The Blues Brothers” and “Midnight Run.” Now, she’s running her own show with a vintage furnishings store in Bucktown, where she gets a chance to display a distinctly unorthodox sense of style.
Working with richly colored fabrics and minutely detailed button from the turn of the century, Alan has taken standard-issue chairs, lamps and pillows and made them over into eye-tickling concoctions.
There’s the armchair refashioned as a “Wild Woman Boudoir Chair,” which improbably frames a zebra-patterned seat cushion with fire engine red wool fabric ($895). A pillow covered in two contrasting plaids is further festooned with antique buttons. Two horse-shaped lamps, rescued from resale oblivion, are reincarnated with a gray silk shade ($500).
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Alan says she works intuitively in coming up with her quirky color and fabric combinations. “My creative process is just to accumulate all this stuff. Then I start putting it together and it turns into something marvelous.”
Jean Alan, 2062 N. Damen Ave., is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Call 312-278-2345.