1905 Fillmore St. & 2410 California St. San Francisco, CA 94115
Fillmore St. 415.776.2100 | California St. 415.776.9002
Hours: Mon - Sat 11am-7pm, Sun Noon-6pm
www.zincdetails.com
The Ideas Behind Zinc Details
Philosophy
Zinc Details is a showcase for functional, durable, and affordable design. Zinc offers furniture and home accessories chosen because they are, or are destined to become, modern classics.
Wendy and Vasilios Kiniris search the world for pieces that best fit the modern lifestyle. Their criteria include clean lines, intriguing form and use of color, high quality, and complete functionality. They believe that objects in their purest form facilitate a simplicity and ease of living. Zinc Details chooses furniture and accessories that will fit a multitude of environments and allow for the maximum use of space.
The Zinc ideal is embodied in its name. Zinc is a strong and durable material that yields an unexpected softness, versatility, and luster. Zinc Details strives for the unexpected and versatile by offering superbly designed pieces for home or office, kitchen, bath, living room, or den.
From the beginning, Zinc Details has served a design-conscious clientele. Original ideas for lamps, tables, rugs, or wall coverings share gallery space with international classics like Bertoia, Noguchi, Saarinen, Platner, and Philippe Starck.
Love of great design leads Zinc Details to look everywhere for it. Zinc buyers may visit a young designer's studio one week and an international design show in Tokyo or New York the next. The search for the next modern classic, whether coffee mug or coffee table, storage system or sofa, never stops.
History
In 1990, two friends fresh out of the College of Environmental Design at the University of California at Berkeley had an idea…and some very strong feelings.
At the university, Vasilios Kiniris and Wendy Nishimura developed an understanding - and a passion - for the modern classics of furniture design. In travels to Europe and Japan, they came face-to-face with new styles hatched from traditional forms. They also formed strong relationships with young artisans and designers in the San Francisco Bay Area who were creating excitement with simply styled, highly functional, and innovative pieces. For Vasilios and Wendy, the next Mies van der Rohe or Charles and Ray Eames could be working in the loft next door.
In November of 1990, they founded Zinc Details and opened their first store at 906 Post Street in San Francisco. At the time, Zinc's retail space consisted of roughly 200 square feet, which they stocked with a small collection of one-of-a-kind furnishings by Bay Area artisans, architects, and industrial designers.
From the beginning, Zinc Details' offerings showed the influences of Japanese, African, and Scandinavian simplicity. The Zinc idea was to offer home and office furnishings that had integrity and lasting value. They selected pieces not because they seemed trendy, but because they had the potential to be contemporary classics - things that carried the élan of treasured modern design. The best of Scandinavian, Italian, Japanese, and American ideas informed Zinc Details. Inventory, then as now.
In 1991, Zinc Details was invited to create a retail concept "shop-within-a-store" in San Francisco at the flagship store of Macy's California. Soon afterward, Zinc extended its wholesale business to reach a wider public and developed its own a product line that included furniture, lighting, and accessories.
In 1994, the store moved from Post Street to its present 1905 Fillmore Street location. The move to Fillmore Street brought Zinc into one of the most popular shopping streets in San Francisco, with vastly increased foot traffic and an additional 1,000 square feet of showroom space. The enlarged Zinc Details was able to increase its product range to include work from both national and international talent and to expand its in-house product line. Zinc now features such brands as Knoll, Kartell, Atlantico, Alessi, Blue Dot, Bee House, and many more.
In 2003, the Fillmore Street store took over the retail space next door, more than doubling its retail space and allowing it to add further lines of internationally known furniture. In 2004, Zinc Details became the major Northern California distributor of KnollSpace home furnishings.
In 2006, Zinc opened its second store in the Fillmore neighborhood, at 2410 California Street. The expansion provided Zinc with a fresh new showroom for furniture, rugs, and lighting pieces, while the Fillmore Street store could double its space for tableware, bar and bath items, and fabric pieces by designers like Angela Adams and Marimekko. Both stores feature original art by regionally and nationally known graphic artists, sculptors, and photographers.
With a solid international reputation, Zinc Details is one of the true destination stores in the San Francisco Bay Area. The store is featured in home and lifestyle "glossies" like Metropolitan Home, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, AXIS Japan, I.D., and California Home & Garden.
The San Francisco Chronicle has named Zinc Details "one of the Top 10 Stores in San Francisco." Citysearch.com awarded it the Number One ranking for home furnishings stores in the Bay Area. And Zinc won a national Retailer Excellence Award for Visual Merchandising from Gifts & Decorative Accessories magazine. All in all, Zinc Details provides an exciting environment in which to find great design.
|
