Arrogant Verneuil: a shop out front, a gallery at the back, and they live in between

Furniture has been sold on rue de Verneuil for two centuries. Setting up there today means offering something other than one more shopfront. Rozemarijn de Witte and Pierre Traversier offered their flat.

The floor plan says everything

At 60 rue de Verneuil, in the 7th, the shop occupies the front of the building, on the street. The gallery space, more confidential, is at the back. And between the two lies their home: Rozemarijn de Witte and Pierre Traversier live at the address they open to the public.

This is not a staged "just like home" — it is literally their home. Which changes everything about how one looks at what is there: the vintage, the art, the fashion and the handmade objects are hung as one hangs things in a house, not as one displays them in a shop.

What it changes about how you look

An object in a window reads on its own, against a neutral background, with a label. An object in a lived-in room reads with everything around it: the ceiling height, the light, what sits beside it and is not for sale. That is information our readers almost never get, and it is the very thing most missing at the moment of buying — not "how much does it cost", but "what does it look like next to my own things".

It is also why the Appartements trail of Paris Design Week is the most useful in the programme: it shows furniture where it will end up, which is to say in someone's home.

Why it interests us

Because a place that mixes vintage, art and artisan pieces is exactly the ground where identification serves a purpose. In a brand shop, you know what you are looking at. In a hang of this kind, you do not — and it is the only place where you can still stumble on a mislabelled editioned piece.

Going there

Arrogant Verneuil — 60 rue de Verneuil, 75007 Paris. During Paris Design Week.

The Beyit gesture: photograph a piece and scan it — the tool tells you who edits it, at what price, and what exists around it.