When Shopping Was Sociable

Design Research closed its doors 31 years ago. Baby boomers remember the store like it was yesterday. D/R was where they bought their Marimekko dresses, the minute they realized a girdle was no longer required. D/R was where they touched the Kaj Franck china, buying one place-setting at a time for first apartments in Cambridge or San Francisco or New York. They copied its grand paper globes, bought rugs in Turkey to slip under their glass coffee tables, dangled wooden toys in front of their tots, and learned to make a mean tagine, using the same clay pot as Julia.