47 Store on Bolshoy Prospekt: The Jeweler Who Helped Design the Shop
At a market in Saint Petersburg in December 2020, jeweler Ekaterina Tolstaya saw why her customers still wanted a shop. They could make a shortlist online, then come to the counter and try the pieces on. At markets the jeweler sold work by friends alongside her own. Each jeweler made a small collection, so a single counter could hold work by several designers. It was at that December market, at Galeria, that Tolstaya decided to give the collection a permanent home on Bolshoy Prospekt.
The building was number 47, which happens to be the atomic number of silver. Then, with work on the shop almost finished, Tolstaya was offered another space: 47 Nevsky Prospekt. Both shops opened in 2021. Bolshoy came first on paper, but the smaller shop on Nevsky was the first to welcome customers. Tolstaya tells the story in her interview with Juvelirum (in Russian).
The jeweler on both sides of the glass
Ivan Kozhin and Ksenia Schastlivtseva designed the flagship on Bolshoy. Schastlivtseva knew the room from both sides of the counter. Among the pieces on display was jewelry from her own label, Щ. In the shop’s photographs, pale trays stand on slender metal legs. Look past them, toward the yellow wall at the back, and the displays give way to magazines.
Tolstaya liked the shops she visited in Berlin, where a designer might make room for coffee or even honey from a sister’s beehives. On Bolshoy, the things that share a room with the silver are studio ceramics, home fragrances and magazines from abroad. The flagship also carries the widest selection of jewelry of any 47 Store. In an interview with Sobaka (in Russian), Tolstaya describes how she and her colleagues choose designers, and why she sometimes argues for a piece they think will never sell.
On STRUGA’s BRUTALISM V.3 ring, silver bars extend beyond the edges of the band. You can see their length from above. Turn the ring sideways and you can see how high they sit above the finger.
Finding the Bolshoy shop
Saint Petersburg, 47 Bolshoy Prospekt, Petrogradskaya Storona.
The shop is open from 11 am to 10 pm. If you have picked out a piece from 47 Store’s STRUGA selection, call the Bolshoy shop to check your size before visiting.
Near Sennaya Square, you’ll find the smaller 47 Store shop on Gorokhovaya. The Moscow shop on Tsvetnoy Boulevard has a story of its own. For other places to try on STRUGA, see our partner directory.
