Concept shop DONTWORRYBABY opens in Austin, Texas, to elevate the paperback as a design object. The shop is located in an abandoned factory somewhere on Austin’s East Side neighborhood. With the location spread largely by hints from the brand and word-of-mouth, the clandestine retail experiment is open sometimes-only and endeavors to spark offline pleasure in an overly-digitized world.
Titles are sourced on the travels of ‘Baby’s owner, creative consultant and stylist Margaret Williamson Bechtold, and are chosen on their rarity, their cover designs, and their publication year; Dontworrybaby’s paperbacks originate in the span from the 1940’s-1990’s.
Dontworrybaby also has a tight section of new, niche periodicals. Titles include Noon, Space Magazine, American Chordata, Riposte, Hotdog, Anxy, n+1, and BOMB, with more to come. Positioned as a reading gallery, Dontworrybaby is part-bookstore, part community space. Programming including dinner parties and workshops starting in the fall.
Its neighboring business, PRIMO, sells coffee from the back of a refitted ‘90s Jeep Cherokee. Interiors were sustainably sourced wherever possible, with much of the furniture originating from the free section of Craigslist. What’s old is new again.
