Inside Givánne: The Art of the Good Find
Inside Givánne, beautiful finds share shelves with the weird, nostalgic and the wonderfully unnecessary. The Lincoln Park boutique feels like a magazine you can walk into.
The neighborhood favorite is filled with gifts, homewares and pieces that feel more thoughtful than most. Linen cocktail napkins with sparkling personality. A beautifully designed fire extinguisher. Something nostalgic, something silly and, more often than not, something that immediately reminds you of a specific person.
That feeling of discovery is intentional. It is one of those shops that makes you forget what you came for only to leave with something even better.
“I wanted it to feel like you had stumbled onto something,” owner Ann says. “I miss shopping where you walk into a place not really knowing what you’re looking for and suddenly you’ve found the perfect gift, or something you didn’t even know existed five minutes earlier.”
After years of increasingly digital shopping, Ann wanted to create a physical space where people could slow down and experience objects in person.
“Especially coming out of the COVID era, after years of buying so much online, I wanted to create a place where people could slow down, be curious, touch things, laugh at things and just feel something again.”
“I wanted it to feel like you had stumbled onto something.”
The result is warm, nostalgic and slightly unexpected.
“There should always be something that makes you laugh, something you have to pick up and something that immediately makes you think of a specific person,” she says. “More than anything, I want people to feel calm and happy when they’re here, and maybe walk out thinking of someone.”
A Magazine You Can Walk Into
Before opening Givánne, Ann worked in the magazine world in New York during the early 2000s. That editorial touch can be felt throughout the store.
One of the first things visitors encounter is the shop’s seasonal magazine “cover,” which changes alongside the store. Its organization is editorial too. Rather than dividing the merchandise into traditional retail departments, Ann created personalities: The Host, The Nester, The Coolest and The Sport. She thinks of them as sections of a magazine.
“What I always loved about magazines was the editing,” she explains. “Finding things, putting them together in ways that maybe weren’t obvious and creating a point of view. You never put everything you could possibly find into an issue. You chose what deserved the space.”
Givánne operates by the same principle. The store brings together the beautiful and funny, the useful and unnecessary, the high and low. Its contents change seasonally, almost as if a new issue has been released.
Ann continually introduces new pieces, moves displays and reconsiders arrangements that may have seemed perfect only a day earlier.
“In many ways, Givánne is the magazine I wanted to exist for gifts,” she says. “It just happens to be one you can walk into.”
What Makes a Good Find?
There is no formula governing what earns a place inside Givánne. Ann’s process begins with instinct.
“I want to feel something when I see it,” she says. “It might make me laugh, remind me of something from 1994, be ridiculously beautiful or be so oddly specific that I immediately know exactly who needs it.”
Originality matters too. If an object already seems to be everywhere, she is generally less interested. She looks for the item someone instinctively picks up and shows to the person shopping beside them.
Most importantly, she imagines who might receive it.
“Who is this for? Who would completely lose it over this?” she asks herself while buying. “To me, the best gifts aren’t necessarily the most expensive or even the most beautiful. They’re the ones that make someone think, ‘Oh my, you know me.’”
That philosophy reflects Ann’s own personality. She is sentimental and remembers the small details: an old inside joke, a childhood obsession, something mentioned years earlier and nearly forgotten.
“There’s something really satisfying about finding the thing that makes someone say, ‘How did you even remember that?’”
Her appreciation for thoughtful design is balanced by a genuine love of the strange, funny and nostalgic. She doesn’t believe everything needs to match or make perfect sense.
“If I love it, I can usually find a place for it,” she says. “That’s pretty much how I approach the store, and unfortunately, probably my house too.”
Let the Unexpected In
That same sensibility informs Ann’s approach to the home.
Her rule for making an everyday space feel more intentional is simple: add something that has absolutely nothing to do with the room’s intended function.
A pantry does not need to contain only food, just as a laundry room does not need to contain only laundry.
“Add the weird little painting you love, an old photograph that probably belongs somewhere else or something you brought home from a trip,” she suggests. “I think those are the things that turn a functional space into your space.”
When styling a pantry, Ann recommends treating it as a room rather than just a place for storage. Introduce a small lamp, warm lighting, a vase, a beautiful object or a piece of art. These details do not need to perform a practical function. Their value is in how they make the room feel.
“Those little things make you want to spend time in the space rather than just get in and get out,” she says. “And honestly, almost everything looks better in lamp light. Even cereal.”
The rooms we use every day deserve personality too, maybe even more so.
Inside the Pantry Edit (Coming Soon)
See how we used Ann’s approach to bring more personality into an everyday space
“Almost everything looks better in lamp light. Even cereal.”
Ann’s Current Edit
A good find under $50:
The wicker skulls from Givánne’s fall collection. “I love Halloween, so I think they’re fun and chic.”
A go-to host or housewarming gift:
For someone she knows well, a piece of art, a chic fire extinguisher or one of Givánne’s custom tequila sets. For a host, she recommends a beautiful decanter and glass set, linen cocktail napkins with personality or popcorn pods paired with a splatter-enamel bowl.
An object she will never remove from her own home:
A vintage ceramic ram’s head. Spoken like the true Aries she is.
A Chicago place she returns to:
Riccardo Enoteca, located a few doors down from the shop. It has become her comfort after a day at work.
One current favorite at Givánne:
A ceramic TOGO chair incense burner.
Visit Givánne
Givánne offers a reminder that a home does not become personal through a perfect aesthetic. It happens gradually through the objects that make us pause, laugh, remember or think of someone we love.
The best finds often have very little to do with what we intended to buy.
They are simply the things that feel like us.
Givánne
Lincoln Park, Chicago
2104 N Clark Street, Chicago, IL 60614
