Briefly in Business

Fried opens Mod Century

Mod Century, a vintage furniture store, will open to the public today at 673 N. Coast Hwy. The store is exclusively offering vintage furnishings from the period known as Mid-Century Modern, according to owner Billy Fried. The store features original furniture from the 1950s and 1960s, from influential architects and designers like Eames, Bertoia, Jacobsen and Wegner, as well as a broad range of Danish Modern and Haywood Wakefield pieces.

“For as many great art galleries as we have in Laguna, I believe we should have a corollary of beautiful design stores,” Fried said in a news release. “It’s great to see this new crop of design-loving entrepreneurs, and I hope the community embraces them. After all, great furnishings are art you can live with.”

While there are a few reproductions, the majority of pieces in the store are original, giving them value in the marketplace because of their limited availability, according to Fried.

“A lot of our pieces are auction quality, and we are already getting online queries from collectors in Europe and Japan,” he said in the statement. “It’s really exciting.”

Fried said that Mid-Century furniture was developed in the post-World War II era using technology to minimize the need for ornamentation. Instead, form was function, with the wood, steel and aluminum frames assuming new kinds of geometric shapes. The result was furniture with clean lines that matched the openness of the homes, and the optimism of the times, Fried said.

California is one of the birthplaces of Mid-Century architecture and design, Fried said, and Laguna Beach has many examples of such homes, with walls of glass and open floor plans.

“The best part about this furniture is that it’s timeless, and looks just as great in modern homes built today as the ones it was originally intended for,” Fried said.

Mod Century will hold an opening reception from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday. The public is invited to attend. The store is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, or by appointment. For more information, visit https://www.modcentury.com, or call (949) 715-6831.