Inside The 365 Studio with Ashlyn Lem Garcia
When Ashlyn Lem Garcia casts her eye upon a piece of stone, all she sees are the imperfections—a scratch here, a water ring there—and she immediately begins to dream up the ways in which she’ll transform it.
Garcia’s attention to detail is what sets The 365 Studio apart from other vintage furniture stores. Each piece that passes through her Corktown studio gets a meticulous once-over from Garcia herself and is then sent, along with her vision, to her refinisher.
“I want every piece to be in the best possible condition before it goes to its new home,” she says. “I don’t want to be a store that just buys items and flips them. It’s important to me to add value, expertise, and knowledge to every piece that I sell.”
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Garcia founded The 365 Studio on September 1, 2020. She’d had jobs in retail and tech pre-pandemic, but always knew she’d end up following her entrepreneurial dreams in one way or another.
She began with a self-designed logo, an Instagram page, and several second-hand trinkets. In less than two years she has designed her own furniture collection, amassed more than 18,600 followers, and has a studio filled with stunning vintage furniture and décor.
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The space is carefully curated to fit Garcia and 365’s aesthetic; it’s often rented by influencers and content creators for photoshoots.
Items are swapped in and out as sales are made, but current studio tenants include a curvaceous Roger Rougier sofa, an octagonal Carrara dining table, and a trio of Nero Marquina marble nesting tables.
In the center of the loft-like space are a striking set of red travertine tables, which Garcia uses to explain her refinishing process.
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When she first got her hands on the custom pair, time, and an acrylic sealer, had rendered them a bright, shiny orange. The tables were stripped (to remove the patchy polish), sanded (to make them even), honed (to give them a matte finish), and sealed (to prevent damage).
The process brought forth the stone’s natural layers of red, orange, cream, and taupe. Garcia describes the one-of-a-kind pair perfectly: “they’re like a piece of Mars on Earth.”
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Despite the time and effort she puts into what she sources and sells, Garcia doesn’t find it hard to let go.
“Finding the perfect piece for a customer and seeing how good it looks in their space is really what brings me joy,” she says, adding that the red travertines are destined for a new life in New York.
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Looking to the future, Garcia sees The 365 Studio transcending the resale scene. In 2021, she designed an in-house collection of marble and onyx tables. Vintage-inspired but sourced from contemporary stone masons, the collection sold out in record time.
Garcia loved every step of the process and is eager to bring more of her designs to life under the 365 brand. She knows the vintage market can only get smaller, and more expensive, and is keen to innovate—a vision that further sets The 365 Studio apart from its competition.
“The 365 Studio lets me pursue a passion and really show that love to other people in a very honest and authentic way,” Garcia says. “Whatever the brand becomes, this is really me doing what I love.”
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