Accidentally John Derian

0:03This is Business of Home. I'm your host, Dennis Scully. Every week I'll be speaking to leaders and innovators from all corners of the home industry. My guest this week is John Darien. In the early days, John drew attention for his decoupage pieces, which cleverly repurposed illustrations from the 19th century. Over the years, he's become so much more. Shopkeeper, artist, author, and purveyor of the world's most unique Christmas ornaments. I spoke with John about his collaborations with everyone from Target to Stubbs and Wooten, how he's managed to keep a sprawling operation going without an inventory and point-of-sale system, and why he's never had a master plan, taking the growth of his business day by day, step by step.

1:03This podcast is sponsored by Lalloy, maker of rugs, pillows, and wall art for the thoughtfully layered home. This season, Lalloy introduces a breadth of new collections for all styles, all aesthetics, and all price points. Visit lalloyrugs.com to see what's new and sign up for a trade account. That's l-o-l-o-i rugs.com. And follow them on Instagram and TikTok at Leloy Rugs. This podcast is also sponsored by CLAFs, the world leader in sauna luxury. For thousands of years, sauna bathing has provided the heat we crave. With CLAFs saunas, you can select the exact levels of temperature and humidity to create a wide range of soothing atmospheres, from a classic Finnish sauna to a gentler, soft steam experience.

1:56When you step into a KLAFSAUNA, you are in control. To learn more about the leaders in sauna luxury and their exclusive trade programs, visit KLAFSA.com. That's K-L-A-F-S-U-S-A dot com. And now, on with the show. So John, you and I were speaking recently about your desire to come up with a two-word description for your business, like shabby chic. And so I turned to our listeners and asked for some help and suggestions. And much to my delight, they came through with some ideas. Oh, wow. I'm ready. So my favorite, joyous wunderkammer. I mean, come on. Yeah, look that word up. Well, right. So I had to look up wunderkammer as well, right?

2:48Which is a German word for sort of a magical place or a curiosity shop. And I thought, oh, I like it even more now. But lots of people responded with joyous, aesthetic forager, another one came up with, which I thought was so sweet, kind of like that. So lots of joyous answers. So I thought that was very sweet, right? that they that's almost that's almost as catchy as shabby chic joyous wunderbar that'll just that'll just roll off the tongue yeah tell the people at target so here's what I'm thinking I'll start with them I'm thinking we're going to kickstart sales by going with joyous wunderkammer and they are going to love it I'll share more if I if I get good ones okay but people were excited to participate in the exercise and the fan base really turns out, which is sweet.

3:46Some people like homework. Some people like homework. I don't sense that you were one of those people. I don't remember. I remember, did you do your homework? Yes. I have nieces and things. I'm like, what are you doing? Lots of homework. I was actually really terrible about doing homework. That may have led to me getting kicked out of several schools in my high school years. That may have been one of the issues. I'm just saying. But it just shows you you can turn yourself around. Yeah, I'm a dropout. Well, right. I mean, so I was thinking about your childhood, your youngest of six, if I recall.

4:23Correct. Yeah. And growing up in Watertown. Tell me a little bit of what that was like. And if I recall, were you the only one of the six that didn't end up working in the family shop? But you tell me. Oh, right. Yes. Yeah, I don't know if it was because I was the youngest and sort of left alone that I found myself doing more sort of things by myself and being creative alone. Although I do have a couple of brothers that were only two and four years older than me. So yeah, my dad worked at Star Market, sort of like a career manager. He worked there for 40 years. And I didn't work at a Star Market.

4:58You know, it was okay. I mean, he turned around one day when I was like 28 and said, oh, I had this idea, maybe you could deliver milk. Like he had read something that leasing milk trucks would be something I could do. And I was like, you have no idea who I am. I see. But he never did. It was fine. He just worried about me, I guess, as a creative child and a family of non-creatives. Well, that was the funny thing, too. So how did that happen? How did you end up being a creative child in a family of non-creatives? Well, some people, because I don't really know, some people have said maybe it is because I was left alone to be creative.

5:32But growing up in Massachusetts, tell me a little bit of what that was like and how it set you on this path somewhat. Again, just sort of being left alone, I guess. I found myself being more creative and making things. And my environments were important to me. and I was forever, I really was forever building forts in all kinds of places, like a band of buildings, once in a milk truck, in bushes and trees, wherever I could find a place to create and spread out, I did. I got in trouble a little bit for it. And then I just collected things and I started making things and then it just turned into making more things.

6:11And then when people ask me, I always say I'm doing the same things where like I did a little play acting, I moved furniture around and made things and I collected things. Did you ever really consider, seriously consider acting? I am actually still waiting to be discovered. I do say it all the time to people. I said it yesterday to someone in the store who came by. They took a picture. I was like, oh, I'm still waiting to be discovered. Yeah, and I still play, I play charades with some friends. It's my little fix. We played last night. We have a charades group that kind of gets together for many years and now it's sort of dwindled down to a few of us because of COVID.

6:46But that was fun. So we get to act. So that's the acting muscle that gets worked? It's a little bit of the acting muscle. But, you know, being a public-facing person sort of in shops and stuff, you are not necessarily acting, but I am engaging. I was lost in the house and garden video of your home on the Cape, which is so charming, and I want to talk about that. But did that in any way resemble the home you grew up in? Were there parallels there? or did your childhood home feel very different? My childhood home felt very different where it was kind of scary. I couldn't really go into the attic or basement for many years until I was probably like 14 and then it was something just changed and I was able to go up and down the stairs.

7:32And we lived in a two-family house, my family owned, but we lived on the dark side. And my grandmother lived on the other side, which was like the sunny side. So I didn't really know what I was missing until I got into a sunny house once. And I was like, wow. This is nice. A lot of, you know, definitely chaos. You know, a lot of chaos. And did you and your siblings get along? Was there, or was it? I didn't really. I was just talking to my brother, who I don't really talk too much. I said, I was just talking about how we didn't get along as kids, and he sort of was a little surprised I said it.

8:08And somehow my brother forgot that. But I had, you know, I had all kinds of things I did and sang and played games and walked to school and did all kinds of melancholy. things that I thought were totally normal. I didn't realize I had sort of an attention thing. I did really stare out the window a lot during school and just fantasize, I guess, because I had a crazy imagination. And I saw old report cards like many years later, and all of them were about my attention. And your lack of attention. Lack of attention. I was like, I like that teacher. Why did she write that? She still loved me, even though I didn't pay much attention.

8:44And at the time, did you have any notion of what you really wanted to do? Was there anything pulling you in a direction? No, it's almost like I was guided by something. Because I backtracked to think of all the things that I did. I always had three jobs. I worked at the Prattle Theater in Cambridge taking tickets. I worked in a shop a couple days a week, and I worked as a waiter. And nothing ever really made sense, but I liked doing all those things. And then when I ended up having my own business, suddenly I was like, oh, they all make sense, and they all kind of helped shape me as a person. and then I went to Salem State College in 1980 for one semester because I just felt like I had to do something and then I left there and then in 1982 I went to Mass Art for a semester which was fun but then I just didn't really get school.

9:25So at one point and I saw this sweet picture the other day of you and Apple Parrish Bartlett. Oh right yeah. Sister Parrish's daughter we should point out for listeners and I know you worked with her for a short time yes? Yeah so in 1982 I was at Mass Art at the end of that semester I was in a watercolor class and we would I would stay late with these two women and um this guy came in to meet one of the people that was painting with and suddenly he sat down and all of a sudden he looked seemed familiar but then i realized i'd seen him around town in around boston um and then we became friends then we became boyfriends and then he is kind of how i learned more about antiques and things he got me up to boston um to marblehead and salem and sort of learned about antiques and antiquing and um when we lived together he had access to all these natural materials and he would bring stuff home and i would play with it too and the first thing i sold in like 1983 was a wreath that i made to a realtor who was renting our apartment who saw and asked if she could buy it and so then that led to making things for this flower shop that was going to open then ultimately i ended up making things for the shop la ruche in boston owned by these two women maria church and apple partlet um i would just work there on saturdays but i would i would make things at home and sell them in the shop on consignment.

10:37Yeah, so the sister powers would come in the store every once in a while with her dogs and was a little intense and worldly but otherwise I just made my things and sold them in the store. I was curious about it because it also sounded like it was where you first did decoupage and we should tell people what that is for people that aren't familiar which became a little bit of a signature for you over the years. So tell people what that is and what you were fooling around with at the time. Yeah, in the early 80s, I found some printed material, like printed old botanical prints for flowers. And I was impressed by the color.

11:14And I started collecting those kinds of things. And then later, I started making map-covered boxes where I would sort of take old maps and cover boxes. So I started doing a little of that and a little bit of collage work, just kind of making cards to sell in the store. I was kind of nonstop making things. And then in like 1989, this other creative person that sold things to the shop LaRouche came in with some clear glass plates and said, oh, you know, I don't have time to do this, but people are gluing images on the back, you should try it. And I took the plates to my studio, which I had in Boston in the south end.

11:48And I made some plates and brought them to work and I sold them. But I used original materials and it didn't really make any sense. And nothing really worked well. and then I discovered sort of like a laser printer like a year later and suddenly I could actually reprint the materials and make multiples of the same thing. So until 1989, everything I made was one of a kind. And in that shop for those few years, I became sort of famous for making button topiary trees. How's that? I did button-covered boxes, button-covered birds, button-covered trees, and I was sort of like, you know, I left Boston as being known for making button trees.

12:26and then I moved to New York and then suddenly my whole decoupage career sort of exploded so basically it's the art of gluing and cutting images and pasting them on the back of the clear glass I think the word is actually called potty chumania which means to make things look like porcelain and what decoupage is is paper images on surfaces and what we do is under surfaces so when you look at it it's a little bit sort of magical because you don't really know what you're looking at because it looks like it's pottery but then it's actually glued on the reverse and the glue dries clear you kind of put glue all over the image and you put it under the glass and then it kind of dries clear and then you have basically a glass plate with the image on the back so you can use them you can only wipe them clean you can't immerse them because it's basically just paper and water so if you put the dishwasher you would get a clear glass plate right it would all be gone yeah yeah and and then once i've discovered that i could repeat these things like i designed like a little set of like seven plates or eight eight designs and i took them to barney's and i had two meetings with them I went twice to see them and the second time I was frustrated that they liked what I was doing but they wanted me to get my prices down and the prices were like rock bottom and I was only just guessing this cost this much this cost this much you know so I Apple had sent me to her friends who had a shop called Lexington Gardens owned by Susan Colley and her sister whose name I can't remember um and I called them and I said sure come on uptown this is like a pay phone in front of Barty's um so I went up there they saw my plates and they're like these are great is it okay if we take them to a show that's happening this weekend?

13:51And I was like, what does that mean? It's like, well, it's a show where other stores come and they buy the products and they order them and then you will make those things and then ship them to those stores. And I was like, okay. She's like, so we'll take this$20 plate. We're going to sell it for$40. And then people in the stores are going to sell it for$80. And I was like, I don't believe it. I just seemed like far-fetched. But then like three days later, the show ended and they sent me orders for like worth totaling like$30 ,000. And so then I had to hire out my friends to like cut and glue and paste and pack and I shipped all this stuff out and that was sort of the beginning.

14:22It kind of started big like that and then just had another show with them that fall and then I switched to getting a new rep called The Loom Company run by these two women, Serena and Maureen, and they started bringing my stuff to shows and we just kept growing. And that's kind of how I had this career in just doing decoupage. And when people reach out to me they'd be like, we're in a decoupage society and want me to come talk and I'm like, I'm not an expert. I just do this thing, which I like and I'm passionate about, but I don't really, I don't know how, I wouldn't know how to teach anybody really anything.

14:56So yeah, so my personal style was, at the time was I painted borders. I painted, I did a lot of painting and I mix it with some of the images and a lot of octagonal plates and sort of sets and matching things. And then around 2000, I was like, well, I think this is what I'm doing with my life. So then I just sort of reset a little bit and looked at, and then started doing sort of more like different kinds of shaped trays and like single images that were interesting to me and then it just it changed a lot the kind of the aesthetic of the look i was kind of going for so let's talk about so you open a shop and and and it really becomes this great big thing i mean and now you've got multiple shops yeah i moved um i moved to new york in 92 and then i'm i did everything out of my apartment and i had staff would come every day and i was a quote cottage industry and i would make lunch for everybody and then um the guy got a little bigger so i took a space downstairs in the same building in the Lower East Side.

15:44It was like kind of a sub-basement. And did the same thing there for like a year. And then in 95, I just needed a bigger space. So I took the one on 2nd Street. But then I thought, oh, it's a storefront. So maybe I can have a store on the front. And I never planned to have a store. But I thought since I had the space and I had a storefront, I'll have a store. So I put up a curtain. The front was retail. The back was where we made everything and shipped, et cetera. And then I would say maybe in 2000, I want to say Anna Wintour sort of came into the store. Something like that. When suddenly she featured me in this big spread in Vogue for Best Christmas Shopping Places, and it just changed the demographic of my client and customer.

16:21Suddenly I was selling down to lifestyle stores as opposed to just decorator or home shops or gift shops. So it did really switch. Then I expanded the store. Then a few years later, a space on my block two buildings away became available. Then it sat there empty for three years because they only wanted to do a restaurant, but then he finally said to me, do you want to take it? And I was like, I don't know why, but sure. So I did. And then that became my dry goods store. Named dry goods because I didn't know what else to name it. And everything else, everything basically is dry goods. And then my middle neighbor, their kids had grown up.

16:55And they were going to renovate their building. I had a storefront. Did I want their storefront? And I was like, I guess. So I took that and made it my furniture store. So everything really had become organic. Everything was sort of organic. I didn't plan anything. It just all just happened. You know, simply basic math, basic math, think basic math. And I had a really good bookkeeper at the time who was like, you know, learn to do the things you can do well, but have fine people to help you do the things you can't do. And she never shamed me about my abilities and, you know, financial abilities or taxes and all those things.

17:28She was just very, very positive. She was very supportive of you. Thank you. She's very supportive. Yeah. That's the words. Well, and you didn't, I mean, you didn't have a business background. And you've talked about how it's all just been very organic. And I know you're longing for some business leadership to join the operation. And we'll talk about that because we're going to do a public outreach for that, John.

17:57In 2025. Might need it, yeah. I mean, this is a sprawling operation. And I want people to really understand. I mean, you're a wholesaler. You've got a shop in Bergdorf Goodman. you've got a shop in japan you've got i mean you've got a lot of things going on and and numerous collaborations right you you do a furniture line with cisco home if i recall yep cisco brothers yeah yeah and and i stayed a lot in paris i do um i've been collaborating with them for like 10 years selling their things for like 20 collaborating for 10 we're friends i love those guys we have fun um it's nice to see my things on plates so you can actually use them Today I'm also kind of user-friendly, so that's kind of fun.

18:39Yeah, and then Designers Guild, I have a line of wallpapers and fabrics. And then Pierre Frey in Paris did a wallpaper that I loved. They reproduced one, and that was fun to have. And then often on the last bunch of years, I've been doing things with Target, like these in-and-out programs. And those have been great, too. It's just fun. I guess I'm sort of obsessed about the imagery that I find, and that's what inspires me and what pushes me to do these things and share things with people. And the Target thing was great because I got to share things with a wider audience. And I think we all relate to the images that I use because they're all natural history.

19:11And people think, oh, I like boats. I like flowers. I like fish. I like animals. So there's something kind of for everyone to relate to. And I think there's something kind about all of it, too. There's a niceness to it. Like, you can relate to those things. And there's, like, spooky and scary things, too, that people like. When I had my reps for 12 years, we'd meet twice a year to do shows. And they're like, no, no rats, no birds. and like no I like rats and bugs and birds I would just do it and then they would sell and then I would be like something just kept me going the whole time where I sort of believed in myself somehow that I was going the right way on the right path but I don't know how I don't really know how I felt that I feel like I didn't really get that much encouragement but somehow I just kept doing things I wasn't worried about anything I wasn't worried about my career I didn't have a career I was planning But all these things just kept happening.

20:03And then one day I was like, oh, look, I have a store and a business. And it just wasn't planned.

20:13We're taking a quick break from the show to remind you about CLAFs, the world leader in sauna luxury. The finest natural materials are essential for creating the CLAFs sauna experience. Carefully selected woods from around the world lend distinctive qualities to each KLAF's design, making every moment within your sauna exceptional. When it comes to material selection, there is no compromise. KLAFs, the art of the sauna since 1928. To learn more about the leaders in sauna luxury and their exclusive trade programs, visit KLAFsUSA.com. That's K-L-A-F-S-U-S-A dot com. And now, back to the show.

21:05Well, you've talked in the past and you and I have talked about how you never had a big pile of money. and in a way it um it all happened at the pace it did in part because you you didn't have outside funding there was a it was a hot minute where martha stewart might have taken a big interest if i recall in the operation that's true yes but yeah then 2008 happened and everything kind of crashed and they decided not to invest in companies but in the end i was glad it didn't work out because I can still get to do all the things I want to do. But she had discovered you at one point, and I remember seeing footage of you chatting with her on TV, and it was pretty amusing.

21:50And it sounds like it was serious, the conversation, but then, as you say, the financial crisis came. Yeah, we talked financials. I met with her team. Yeah, I was on her show a couple times. And she was supportive of all the things I did. And I think that she appreciates what I kind of bring to the world. and sort of... Well, and Anna Wintour, as you said, seems like she was very instrumental in the growth. Yeah, I feel like she appeared and helped in a way maybe she doesn't even know she did, but she's been a great big support. So it grew out of the shops and the partnerships, and it sounds like there's a lot of investments that you wish you could make on the technology side of the business and maybe some of the infrastructure.

22:33Right. I think I said to you that I would say five years ago, I really thought about what the word margins meant. I wasn't quite sure. We would talk at these meetings and I was like, explain margins again. Currently, right now, we have 30 ,000 Christmas ornaments in the middle store. I mean, we've sold a bunch, so we don't have 30 ,000. That's how many we've ordered. So we have all the inventories in all the three stores and the stuff that we sell online and things that I have in our shop in Provincetown is all in my head. Because we don't have a point of sale system. That was the thing that was very funny.

23:06I found it remarkable. I found it absolutely remarkable that you don't have a point of sales system. I can't even wrap my head around that. So what does that mean? How are you doing all these transactions? What's a pen and a piece of paper? And a sales book. It's all numbers. Even my staff, I'll be like, oh, they'll send me something. I'm like, can you print that catalog for me and put it on my desk? I just have to look at the piece of paper. I have to touch the paper, look at the paper. for everything. It's kind of crazy. Like right now, I have paper and pen in front of me just because I need to write something.

23:38I was a terrible student, though, too, because I couldn't really, if I wrote the information down, I would miss something by not looking. And if I looked and didn't write it down, I would miss something. So I never really got anything. I got always like the gist of things. Never like, wait. I never knew how to take notes and things. But I still like paper and I still appreciate and work from paper. I would say maybe in the late 90s, we got a computer. I had this friend who showed up from Boston who could do all these things. She was like, oh, yeah, I could ship in UPS. She could do all the things that I needed someone to be able to do.

24:13And then she kind of computerized us. And then suddenly I was separate. I was locked out with the company a little bit because I didn't know how to deal with any of those things that caused some tension for, what, 30 years now? so anyone that works for me that knows me knows that I'm really bad with all those things like in my production studio is where we like print invoices and make pack do all that stuff there which somebody else does currently I don't have a studio manager so if anybody else is it's another job that one just makes me like my brain just shuts down when I get over there because I'm like I don't know how to do any of these things like in the beginning I would think it was handwritten But the stores are, I can deal with, because it's still pretty basic, basic math.

24:59That's the part that people will marvel at, that the business has grown to this scale without the existence of a point of sale system or a lot of structure. But it sounds as though we may be on the precipice of all of that changing and coming. Yes, I think, yeah. You know, it's so funny when we had our first Target meeting in 2008 or 7 or 8. we met them in New York at their office and it was just my agent friend Stephanie and I we got there and it was this giant room with like I don't know 35 seats and stuff they were like we're not sure how big your team is I was like well it's me and when people reach out to the store and they want to talk to like somebody in charge something it's like that's me or like when somebody calls on the phone that you know didn't want to pay the shipping and something was mad the ship didn't get there on time we're like they want to speak to the whatever they call it like somebody high up and official like it's still me you know like i'm somebody came the other day they're like do you choose all these things in the store i was like yes and then you put all these things in the store yes i'm like there's so many things in the store that people are just i don't know they're they were just like going like oh who's who's your buyer me who's your visual person me who's who's the one running this anyways it is it was i have to say these last 10 years have been a little tougher in the last five years just because there's a It's been a sort of generational change and the shift in kind of our work ethics.

26:25It took a while to work my brain around. I have a nice team now, but it's been different. And the last five years have been harder thanks to COVID because some of the managers didn't come back. And then it was just starting from scratch again. And then sort of slowly working as a team and being like, we're on the same page. Even when I have staff meetings, we have staff meetings every Wednesday. I wanted to just say to them, you guys, I'm just like you. I'm like, it's like you. Something became this. like sometimes it's a really small company and a nice group of people but i don't know it's like when you have parents and there's somehow there are these gods that can do no wrong and then you just have so much respect for them and then you realize oh they're just people later in life you realize oh they're just people sometimes i want my staff to be like help me out here i'm just a person like you and when we we got back together after covid i just treated everyone i was like we're all on the same page right now like i'm just a person like you like it's not like there's this higher up anywhere well i am i am the higher up but yes yes no no it sounds like you're a great great many things within the organization but and we're gonna work we're gonna work on that man i'm i'm making this my mission to staff you up in the in the coming year i mean when this conversation's over i'm like getting to work on that the keyboard not the keyboard the the lights are gonna be flashing on your whatever your thing is exactly it's gonna be non-stop but take me back just just fill in the blanks for me with the target.

27:45How, how that came about. You had an agent, right. Who was my friend, Stephanie Pesikoff, um, I worked for art department or does work for art department. And she is an agent for illustrators and she was doing a project with target and they were working with one of her illustrators. And I think something came up in the meeting and she said, how about John Darien? And so that's how that happened. And it was really a fun thing because they reached out and then suddenly we had this, you know, kind of contract for X amount of items. and it was called an in and out program where I would just be in the shops for a short period and that would be it.

28:17So I didn't really think it would affect the customers that I sold to and the kind of product they already made that was handmade in New York and sold to stores. This would be stuff that I would design that they would make elsewhere in the world and then it would be similar looking things but for a very different price. And I remember it was really fun because I recreated all the products that I thought in all the categories I thought would work so much that they added two whole more groups of categories on because I created these things I didn't expect and no one had ever come to them and handmade samples because I made picture frames, I made waste barrels.