Onna House Expands To SoHo, Honoring Female Designers

In 2021, Lisa Perry saved a Japanese-style mid-century home in East Hampton, Long Island, from being demolished—and decided to fill it exclusively with the work of female designers. The following year, she opened the space to the public, curating her first show at what’s now dubbed Onna House (onna is Japanese for woman). When she later sought to expand to a Manhattan location, the ideal site serendipitously presented itself: the SoHo loft in which she’d launched her womenswear line nearly two decades ago.

“I kept it all these years, but why?” she recalls wondering. “I think it was always meant to be Onna House.” The urban equivalent of the Hamptons showroom, the space is outfitted with pieces by mostly local creators. Nadia Yaron hand chiseled her Peach Magnolia totem of walnut and alabaster at her home studio in upstate New York, A Woven Year is from Brooklyn-based Jessie Mordine Young’s daily weaving series, and the delicate mixed-fiber wall hangings, Continuum I and Continuum II, are by fellow Brooklynite Hiroko Takeda.