Aero Studios

About

A Thomas O'Brien Company

Story

Thomas O’Brien founded Aero Studios in 1992 as an interior design firm combined with a vintage furniture gallery and home furnishings store. In name and practice, Aero has always represented this twofold enterprise: studio and store together, distinctively housed together under one roof. The existence of Aero is central to O’Brien’s creative approach. It is both the place and the style that connect the elements of his design world in a continuous thread, from products to shop to interiors.

Since his arrival on the New York design stage, O’Brien has embraced the full arc of traditional to modern style as a new way to define American modern living. His work passes through a modernist filter but is bred of older virtues: vintage elegance, classic comfort, and credible, knowledgeable collecting. As his company alter-ego, Aero is the constant laboratory for this philosophy. Modeled after the industrial workshops and artist ateliers that O’Brien admires, the Aero design studio translates historical inspirations into modern products and spaces: O’Brien’s namesake brand of home furnishings; his popular Vintage Modern collection for Target; commercial and residential architecture and design. The Aero store acts as the retail function of the studio, sharing the designer’s latest ideas with the public in an emporium of special goods, six days a week, year-round.

For nearly twenty years, Aero has been a fixture in New York’s downtown Soho neighborhood. Today it remains an emblem of Soho’s modern arts and gallery legacy, as one of the original designer stores in the area, and a unique style outpost for shoppers from around the city and the world. From its first address on Spring Street in central Soho, Aero is now located just to the south, in the resurgent Crosby-Broome design district. Joined with Aero Studios in the headquarters of the Thomas O’Brien Company, the Aero store occupies a much-expanded street-front presence, and exhibits the most complete offering anywhere of O’Brien’s brand products: furniture, lighting, carpets, and fabrics to order, along with tableware, accessories, and bedding. Special gift registry and home decor services through the store also extend O’Brien’s design imprimatur to shoppers, for more personalized access to the full world of Aero style.

Aero Studios, Aero Ltd., and the Thomas O’Brien Company are located at 419 Broome Street (between Crosby and Lafayette streets). The store is open Monday through Saturday, 11:00 am until 6:00 pm. Studio visits are scheduled by appointment.

Products

The Aero store is a one-of-a-kind repository for special tabletop goods, decorative objects, accessories, art, and refurbished vintage furniture and lighting, all hand-picked by O’Brien. Though stocked with the scope of a home department store, in spirit Aero has always had more in common with the salon glamour and courtesies of earlier century boutiques and antique stores: a refined selection edited together by a constant collector. Aero represents all of O’Brien’s roving interests, mixing the whimsical, the essential, and the fine.

The airy, restored loft space of the store has the blend of vintage architecture, elegant spareness, and object richness to be found in a typical O’Brien home. The floor is configured around room settings that feature both antique and O’Brien-designed furniture. The wide variety of products comingle in naturalistic, uncluttered vignettes. Displays are changed inventively and often around seasonal themes and new product launches. Relaxed perusals and repeat visits are always encouraged by the gracious sales associates, who offer the same informed design counsel to the Aero public that O’Brien gives to his private studio clients.

The retail part of Aero is where O’Brien actively experiments in an environment, putting furnishings and collectibles together different ways for both traditional and modern effects. It is the first stop for anyone interested in a hands-on example of his template for decorating, and for the newest plans percolating out of the studio – essentially, an evolving Thomas O’Brien interior for all.

Completing the store assortment are the Thomas O’Brien furnishings, which are shown together across categories and presented in revolving fabrics, finishes, and color choices. Shoppers can survey the full catalog of O’Brien’s products here and receive expert help in placing orders.

The collections represented in the store include O’Brien’s furniture with Hickory Chair, lighting with Visual Comfort, fine tableware and gifts with Reed & Barton, rugs with Safavieh, and fabrics for Groundworks/Lee Jofa. Downstairs, additional store space is filled with more of O’Brien’s products, including architectural lights and bedding from his Marshall Field’s line. Many of the lights and tabletop items, as well as the bedding, can be purchased in stock, adding to the immediacy of a store rather than showroom setting.