Sitting pretty at Twelve Chairs

Having opened its doors in Fort Point Channel just a month ago, Twelve Chairs is settling right into the design-focused neighborhood with its selection of modern and whimsical home furnishings.

“There’s a great arts community here,” explains co-founder and creative director Roisin Giese. “I had worked down here originally, so I was familiar with the neighborhood and I could totally see our aesthetic fitting in.”

That aesthetic is clearly contemporary — yet incredibly warm — incorporating boldly patterned throw pillows, colorful ceramics and graphic letterpress cards. You could say it’s more Domino Magazine than Architectural Digest.

The youthful, modern feel comes courtesy of Giese along with co-founder and creative director Miggy Mason. The two women, who met as interior design students at Cornell University, share an unwavering dedication to carrying sustainable and socially responsible products in the shop.

“That was really important to us right from the beginning,” says Mason. “Right off the bat, before we even did too much research on vendors, we established a set of criteria that we wanted all of them to meet. And it was important to us to be environmentally responsible as well as socially responsible.”

At the end, they came up with 12 criteria, though it is not how Twelve Chairs got its name.

“Our major was only 12 girls,” said Giese of the Cornell program she attended with Mason, “so we named the store in their honor. We were a really tight-knit group.”

Giese and Mason are focusing on the retail side of Twelve Chairs for now, but they will surely make proud those other 10 Cornell studio-mates when they launch their full-service interior design studio in the new year.