Inside the Man Repeller's New Office

Elle magazine shares with us a peek inside Leandra Medine's newly minted office. The entity that is The Man Repeller, had apparently outgrown it's original place and needed an upgrade. The end result should serve well for all creative endeavors.

Blogger/author Leandra Medine, a.k.a., the Man Repeller, recently relocated her team of five full-time employees to a loft space in New York City’s NoHo district. “The team was growing so we needed a larger space. Our previous space was about 400 square feet, if that large,” says Medine who worked with interior design service Homepolish to create a chic, multi-functional space for her staff. Here, we take you on an exclusive tour of the Man Repeller headquarters.

Homepolish paired Medine with their co-founder and CEO Noa Santos. “Leandra’s opinionated enough to distinctly know what she likes and what she doesn’t like and that’s super valuable to have in a client,” says Santos. “[The space] functions as enough of a blank canvas that it doesn’t take away from the fashion items or style items that she always has coming through the office.”

Curating the bookshelf

“When you have a pretty plain white bookshelf, you can group things according to style and color,” says Santos. “You curate a shelf almost like you would curate an outfit,” he adds.

Displays of affection

“If you want a conversation starter bookshelf, then you just need to find the most unusual and peculiar objects that you own,” says Medine. “If you’re kind of an over-sharer, you should put hints on there, so people ask questions that get you talking about all the stuff that you otherwise would not be able to talk about. And if you just want it to look pretty, I would suggest searching ‘pretty bookshelves’ on Pinterest. I’m not even kidding.”

The lounge area

Succulents in planters from Etsy

A dynamic layout

“[The sneakers] are a collaboration between Tibi and Converse. They were a gift from Tibi’s Amy Smilovic.”

Accessories as art

Medine proudly displays her Paula Cademartori clutch alongside a DwellStudio orb.

Fanciful footwear

“Those are a pair of Stuart Weitzman sandals from a collection they launched called ‘Nudist’. We ran a campaign with them, and those happened to be the shoes that I collected. They’re unusually comfortable, which I find cool.”

Customizable storage

“There’s just random pairs of shoes, handbags, or silly objects that I’ve just come to collect over time in the office,” says Medine of her motley crew of knick knacks. “The bookshelf comes in pieces that you can buy and put together as many segments as you want,” says Santos. “It was from a company called Blu Dot.”

The lounge area

The couch is very, very comfortable, so it’s also really nice to sit on and edit, or brainstorm towards the end of the day when you just want to get a change of pace,” says Medine. The artwork is by “a friend of mine [Jay Ezra] who shot that image.”

The office bar

“You need a place to have coffee, have drinks or whatnot,” says Santos of the Organic Modernism console. “I think a storage bar area is something we put in almost every single one of our offices, no matter if it’s 1,000 or 20,000 square feet. It’s just a matter of having something where it’s a functional piece that also has a lot of storage. It’s a no-brainer.”                      

A dynamic layout

“One of the important things for a start-up office is that if you’re expecting people to work longer days, you want to create an environment where it’s not just about sitting at the desk,” says Santos. “They can change whether they want to lie on the sofa, or sit on the floor, sit at the table—you want to give them a variety of environments so they almost feel like it’s a home, rather than strictly an office.” Vintage glasses found on Etsy.

Lofty ambitions

“It’s an open space with four quite large windows on the corner, so we get a lot of natural light,” says Medine of her roughly 960-square-foot loft. What’s next for the blogging juggernaut? “It’s not really about what’s next for me so much as what’s next for Man Repeller—which is hopefully just continued growth.”

elle.com