It was in the silence of the night, as she was trying to get her young son to sleep, that Lisa Fine hatched the idea for Quiet Town. A fashion stylist married to a fashion photographer, she started mentally upgrading the elements in their Brooklyn brownstone apartment when she fixated on the bathroom: “I realized that if someone like me, who loves color and texture, was buying hotel-white shower curtains and rugs then there was a huge opportunity in this category,” she told us.
While also juggling their day jobs and child care, Lisa and her husband, Michael Fine, got to work, making sketches, sourcing materials, and finding small-batch manufacturers.”We thought about those trips to the giant home store, shopping cart filled with a vinyl shower curtain liner and plastic trashcan and toothbrush holder, a compliant shrug accompanying each generic purchase,” says Lisa. “Using our ambivalence as inspiration, we decided to go down that shopping list crossing things off as we redesigned them.” A year later, Quiet Town stands ready with a full line of graphically patterned stitched canvas shower curtains and woven cotton mats. We’ll be watching to see what they tackle next. Photography by Michael Fine for Quiet Town.

Above: Inspired by “a simple horizon line” (and with a nod to Martin Margiela’s white on off-white designs), The Orient, $148, is one of Quiet Town’s two shower curtain patterns. It’s...