Set Designer Andrea Huelse Digs Soho Prop Shop Paula Rubenstein

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New York City has more stores than anyone could physically tackle, but somehow we always keep returning to the usual suspects. To break out of the rut, we've asked some of the city's shopping and fashion gurus to provide their hidden retail gems—those unique stores around our island (and beyond) that we might not all know about. Cue The Beatles: We're about to get a little help from our friends.

Image via Flickr

Andrea Huelse is a New York-based set designer and prop stylist who focuses mainly on commercial and editorial print projects. She's worked with magazines (V and Flaunt), major global heavyweights (Ford Models and Target), television outlets (PBS and BBC), and architects (Diller Scofidio and Renfro). Her imaginative and hyper-collaborative process has led her to work alongside some seriously top-notch fabricators and craftspeople, and her work runs the gamut from Victorian chic to 19th century hip-hop. Huelse told us exactly where to go to get modern table tops, ribbon baskets, and Edwardian mannequins.—Yale Breslin

I love Paula Rubenstein. Her store is a favorite haunt of mine, especially when rooting out props or set pieces for editorial shoots. Paula and her amazingly charming staff (Dan and Keith) are always willing to bend over backwards (or as is often the case, clamber and contort over piles of goodies crammed in the basement) to help me find the just the right object, and what remarkable objects there are!

Piles of beautiful linens, carpets and quilts, heaps of framed photos and paintings, lovely old finials and spun metal orbs, industrial tables and stools, Edwardian mannequins and cabinetry, silk ribbons, folding library ladders, polo goal posts, the list goes on forever... and all selected with a superb eye for texture and scale. Paula also happens to be one of the nicest people in the business, always a positive and enthusiastic presence. Go to her store and you'll never leave uninspired or empty-handed.

· Andrea Huelse [Official Site]
· Paula Rubenstein [NYMag]

Paula Rubenstein LTD

65 Prince Street, New York NY 10012