Elizabeth Allen store different by design

KATIE CICCHETTO

Intern

The difference between Elizabeth Allen Atelier and the average bedding store is that customers can order their bedding to create a personalized bed.

Elizabeth Allen has used her original taste in fabrics to put together adult and baby bedding collections that are being sold across the United States as well as at her Bird Rock store.

As the founder and manager of the company, Allen said she makes most of the bedding in the United States “and therefore am able to offer a very custom service, which is more rare these days (since most products are made overseas).”

She became interested in opening her own store after noticing the empty space at 648 Westbourne St., and opened Elizabeth Allen Atelier in December.

Although she always had a love for patterns and unique fabrics, she began working as a bureau fashion editor for WWD and W Magazine. After working with Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld, she was inspired to design her own products, she said.

“I decided to make pillows, rather than clothes, with the mounds of fabrics I had collected.”

After taking her pillows to ABC Carpet & Home in New York, Allen left the store with an order, which soon became Elizabeth Allen Atelier in 1998.

She says she had no real intention of starting a business, “but quickly figured out how to run one.”

Her plan is to keep her line from becoming “static.” Learning from her wholesale business she ran for 10 years on Westbourne Street, Allen said she is figuring out the business world as she goes along.

“My plan is to keep a lively mix of looks and products and introduce new lines regularly,” she said, adding that she intends to incorporate touches of bohemian, contemporary and ethnic styles.

Her bedding is manufactured in the U.S., and she buys patterns from the United States, Europe, South America, India and as a last resort, China. Her personally designed bedding is sold at high-end home stores and children’s boutiques all across the United States, but only at Elizabeth Allen Atelier is the bedding offered at a large discount.

Katie Cicchetto is an intern from High Tech High International.