Welcome to The Green Sofa.
Pull up a seat.
Every shop has a sofa. It’s the spot where people sit down not to buy anything, just to talk. Ours isn’t in a store. It’s here, online. Green, like our color, with room for whoever wants to stay a while.
That sofa has heard a lot over the years. The tourist who bought eleven pairs of pajamas “for emergencies.” The man who came in for socks and left engaged. The regulars who go months without buying a thing but still stop by to chat. Schostal has been open since 1870, and this is where those conversations carry on.
Twice a month we write about the kind of old-fashioned things that somehow never go out of style: striped pajamas, a shirt that’s actually made well, the small habits of dressing decently and taking your time about it. Some of the stories come from behind our counter in Rome. Others we picked up along the way. All of them are told the way we’d tell them in person: unhurried, a little opinionated, and usually with a tangent or two.
We’re not really here to sell you anything. If you end up wanting pajamas, fine — that works out for everyone. But mostly this is just for the conversation.
The one telling the stories
Shirley runs the shop in Rome. Someone once called her “Rome’s reigning queen of pajamas,” and it wasn’t us. She can tell your size across the room, and whether your shirt is sitting right on your shoulders. She doesn’t rattle easily, even on the days the store is packed with tourists and somebody asks, for the third time, whether we still make the exact pattern from his childhood. Sometimes we do.
She’ll do most of the writing here, but not all of it. Now and then, the rest of the Schostal team joins in, and with 150 years behind us, there’s no shortage of stories to tell.
A comfortable place
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And if someone comes to mind who'd enjoy pulling up a seat, bring them along. There's always room.
We're glad you're here. Make yourself comfortable. We've saved you a seat.
