Photograph by Martha Williams
It’s a common complaint: Items in big-box stores, from furniture to clothing, lack the quality of years past. In a race for low prices and consumer convenience, today’s major retailers generally opt for cheaper materials and substandard labor practices to pump out cheap, overly abundant goods.
Retailers like Stephanie Young, who owns Wanderstate Mercantile in Chamblee, want to change that.
“Using our hands to make things is very important,” Young says. “When you can connect with a person or a small company that is making the product, there’s definitely a lot more nostalgia and connectivity to us as humans.”
The vast majority of Wanderstate’s lifestyle goods are handcrafted. Most items come from within the United States, including locally made goods from metro Atlanta and Athens, but Wanderstate also sources from Australia, Germany, India, and Japan. Manufactured items for sale in the shop come from companies that set high sustainability and labor standards.
Stepping into Wanderstate is a respite from the daily exasperations of city life. Inside the shop, a Japanese shoji screen repurposed into window shades softens the eastern sunlight’s glare, notes of incense hang in the air, and soft music plays in the background.
Wanderstate’s calming aesthetics are rooted in Japandi, the intersection of Japanese and Scandinavian design. The hybrid style is denoted by clean lines, organic shapes, high-quality materials, and the marriage of form and function, as well as an affection for bringing nature indoors. Picture a minimalist ash wood table, accented by a practical yet beautiful ceramic teapot: That’s the essence of Japandi.
Young, who studied fashion and merchandising and then worked in fashion and home design, says she was naturally drawn to the aesthetics of Japandi. She visited Japan for the first time in 2016 and quickly fell in love with the country’s culture and design philosophy. That affinity ultimately led to the genesis of Wanderstate Mercantile, where the inspiration can be found in the handmade shelves lining the walls, soft hues, and an emphasis on wabi-sabi, a Japanese concept that finds beauty in things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.
“I chose my interpretation of Japandi aesthetic for Wanderstate because I love Japanese minimalism and craft, but I also have a love for Scandinavian hygge, or coziness,” Young says. “Japandi is such a trendy design buzzword, so I wanted to make sure that the design of the shop—and more so how people feel in the shop—was true to my viewpoint.”
Young started Wanderstate Mercantile as a pop-up in 2022, setting up at coffee shops, art markets, and breweries, with a focus on such smaller goods as jewelry and candles. The opportunity for a permanent home came through a pop-up she held at a Chamblee yarn shop: The building’s landlord happened to be in the store that day, and Young explained her goals for Wanderstate in between sales.
Three months later, Young received a call from the landlord letting her know the yarn shop had closed; would she be interested in setting up a physical location? “I had a gut feeling that I needed to try it out,” she says.
Two years later, Wanderstate Mercantile is thriving in a steadily growing downtown Chamblee. Young feels fortunate to have moved into the area when she did, at the forefront of Peachtree Road’s recent growth spurt.
“Chamblee seemed really charming: still not too crazy, but busy enough where you had foot traffic, and people were starting to explore the area more,” she says.
Young now uses her physical space to support the next generation of pop-ups: Recent events have included a dumpling workshop with Soupbelly, a charm-necklace bar with Rising, and a holiday crafting workshop with Ritual Atlanta.
One of the great strengths of having a brick-and-mortar space, Young says, is that it creates opportunities for customers to meet the makers of the goods they see for sale. This, in turn, encourages people to think about what they’re buying—and where they’re buying it.
“I have customers come in and tell me they probably would have bought [something] from Target or Amazon in the past, but they wanted to come in and support the shop and the makers of that [same item],” Young says. “They were excited to find products that they didn’t have to go to Amazon to purchase.”
This article appears in our August 2025 issue.
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