‘It was a brothel in its original form. I feel like we have the sex workers as ghosts, jumping around the store for us.’ Breanna Box is describing the design shop she runs with her partner, Peter Dupont. Heven, conveniently located in Manhattan’s East Village, sells objects both desirable and disreputable, its flower-filled window display set temptingly behind a metal grille.
Founded in 2020, Heven was born in lockdown. ‘We were thinking about ways we make our home a heaven,’ explains Box, explaining that Heven’s deliberate misspelling puts ‘Eve’, creator of original sin, at the centre of the story. ‘It was the original spelling in the holy books,’ adds Dupont. The first product, a biomorphic wine decanter with a stopper in the shape of a devil’s head, was sold on Instagram to fund Box’s film project. The pair had taken up glassblowing while locked down in London, finding a teacher in the countryside whose playful ethos and female-led studio was inspiring. ‘Normally glassblowing is very male-dominated, which is so lame and stupid and old school,’ says Dupont. ‘She had this strong energy and approach of just doing things the way you want it. We burned ourselves a couple of times, but that’s all part of it.’
Today the wine decanter still exists, alongside a cartoonish menagerie of other bespoke glass products. The original carafe is reinvented in a brattish lime green for ‘Baby Yoda’, with spirals of red for ‘Judas’ and polka-dotted pink in ‘Pop Mom’. Other glassware includes Memphis-esque drinking vessels, Lynchian champagne flutes and retro-futuristic wine glasses. Cinema is a reference throughout, with Box citing Bob Fosse’s ‘grandeur, showbiz and dark ideas about life’, and Pedro Almodóvar’s ‘celebration of unique women – and taste in home décor’, as key influences. Heven still serves as a means for the pair to finance their film practice.
The pair, who met as models, have also created wearable items: jewellery, glass bikinis and handbags, the latter striped or spotted, bedecked with their signature angel wings or devil horns. The viral potential of these absurd objects has seen them recognised on the red carpet and in editorials (Shakira and it-girl Gabriette are among their models). While Box is inspired by her own niche taste (she describes a fetish for phone cases, in particular a My Little Pony one ‘with rhinestones and real hair’), Dupont, who spent seven years working with designer Kim Jones at Louis Vuitton and Dior, is motivated by the bigger engine of storytelling. ‘A lot of fashion doesn’t make sense commercially,’ says Dupont. ‘If you sold it to a marketing team in any other industry, they’d be like, what are you talking about?’
Other furniture items including a ‘Marshmallow’ lamp and a modular table whose colour changes with the temperature. They have collaborated with Coperni and fashion designer Samuel Lewis (whose dress creations have been championed by Julia Fox) to create earthquake-proof mirrors, framed with bird-like arrangements of stuffed textiles that hang like dreamcatchers.
While Heven’s designs have taken them around the world – most recently at Copenhagen’s 3 Days of Design festival in June – the East Village store provides a crucial base. Around the corner from their glassblowing studio, the shop is shared with the ceramicist Alvaro Colom, and sells books by Japanese Avant-garde Books. Mary Lou, Box’s grandmother, has been brought in to handle the flowers. ‘She had a flower shop for 50 years in Minnesota,’ says Box. ‘It was basically a front for your grandfather’s weed and diamond business,’ jokes Dupont.
The pair are keen to find a way to bring Heven to more people. ‘There are a lot of people who want to buy into the brand, but can’t afford a $2,000 glass bag – which is silly anyway,’ says Dupont, describing their plans to create mini-versions of their designs for under $100. Their flower subscription service, meanwhile, transports their glass vases into cafés, offices and retail spaces across Brooklyn and Manhattan. This summer when New York reaches its infernal temperatures, another kind of pleasure will await those who reach Heven’s pearly gates. ‘We’ve hired our friend Dorian, who’s a baker,’ says Box. ‘We are going to do ice-cream sandwiches.’
Visit Instagram @home.in.heven
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