Inside Industry City’s Makers Guild
Located in Building 5 of the spectacular Sunset Park center, the Makers Guild lets you shop inside the studios of artisans and designers.
Photographs courtesy of Industry City
Everybody at Industry City has gained a few pounds since returning to in-person work. It’s an anecdote heard and overheard often around the Sunset Park creative-industrial complex’s campus, a space so excitingly expansive in its indoor-outdoor flow that one can’t help but think it to be Brooklyn’s experimental answer to Los Angeles’ more statically commercial The Grove. Aptly dubbed a “city within a city” on Instagram, Industry City indeed counts a fine array of restaurants and breweries amongst its residents. But it’s not just food that should bring you to the compound. These eateries count as their neighbors joint retail-workshop spaces for some of New York’s most cutting-edge designers.
At a preview night for the Makers Guild, an upstairs enclave of the larger Industry City compound located in Building 5 on the second floor, we got the inside scoop on some of the freshest faces setting up shop. Makers make and designers design in the same space that they sell their wares, meaning you can see every step of the process.
Photographs courtesy of Industry City
Saskia, then an actor, rather spontaneously threw a jewelry-making kit into her suitcase while packing for a trip backpacking across Asia. The rest is history—Saskia now runs a studio and shop out of Industry City. Her latest undertaking? Jewelry-making parties on scene.
Photographs courtesy of Industry City
Columbia graduate student Sally Qiu has sensitive skin. Rather than resigning herself to a life researching which products to buy for her skin type, she enrolled in a program in which she could study organic skincare formulation. Her company, For Sea and Oats, makes products that are all-natural, oat-based, and low-waste out of the Makers’ Guild. On display alongside items available for resale are soaps still in their finishing process—a walk around the store sees Sally’s skincare line at every step from start to finish.
Photographs courtesy of Industry City
After a decade in the corporate world, Swati Bansal yearned for creative fulfillment. As she and her partner prepared for a move to New York City in 2019, she saw her opportunity for a clean slate and founded Soil to Studio. Bansal and her team at the textile design studio carry keen eyes for the vibrant colors and textures of nature. Finishing and packaging occurs onsite at Industry City. Table napkins, linen pillowcases, quilts—and, soon, bedding in the form of sheets and linens—are all available for purchase.
If at some point during your time at Industry City you find yourself hungry, there are lots of places in which to dine. In the Makers’ Guild, that place is Tadaima, which means “I am home” in Japanese. And baker-owner Ayaka Ando certainly carries through on that moniker. Not only can she be seen by the counter, comfortable and focused in her work, but the shop itself feels clean and warm like your own home on its best days. Items that might not be in stock in your home include matcha shortbreads and black sesame Madeleine cookies.
