A Day in the Life: FORMAS

What's it like to run a successful design store in a town like LA? Follow Natalia and Josh of LA design hub FORMAS as they take on a typical day

Meet Natalia Luna and Josh Terris, the couple behind formas, one of our favorite design stores (though it’s so much more than that) and an LA-based hub that's redefining design retail. Born from a shared passion for unique design and the stories behind it, formas is a spot for anyone looking for that something.

A Peter Shire teapot sculpture right at home in the formas space

In a world full of design stores, formas offers something special. Larger-than-life chairs shaped like fallen columns and giant pieces of synthetic fruit – items that blend art, function, and sentiment. At formas, each piece has it’s own weird and special story.

But what's a typical day like for design dealers balancing the next big vintage haul with their everday tasks? Join us as we delve into a day in the life of Natalia and Josh, from the break of dawn to the LA sunset, and discover what it takes to run formas.

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7am 

On a day like today, Josh and I will roll out of bed, quickly get dressed, and work out before we get the day started. He’s off to play tennis in Highland Park while I go to my cycling class. 

9:30am

We both get back around 9:30, I take our dog around our neighborhood while Josh showers and gets ready. Once I’m back I do the same!

10:30am

Now it’s time for our routine, we start with making the bed and go down every room and make sure it’s tidy before we head out. It helps us feel organized and less anxious during the day lol. 

11am 

I feed the dog, which is a whole thing because he is the pickiest eater ever and we pack my car with all of our weekend finds to take to our studio. 

11:15am

We’re finally out the door and off to THE BEST bfast burrito spot in Boyle Heights! We got chile relleno burritos. So good but low key gave us a stomachache 😅

11:45am

Finally at our studio, Josh loads in all the goods while I start patching holes and getting the walls ready for new stuff. 

12:30pm 

There’s a lot to clean and rearrange, so we clean piece by piece and play around with the layout at the space. 

1pm 

Josh starts shooting all the new pieces for the site, when he’s done, I’ll usually edit the photos, come up with the captions and publish it all on the site! 

3pm 

Brainstorm new ideas for the week,  hit up customers about new items and layout all of the week’s to-do’s in our calendar. 

4pm 

We’ve been wanting to visit this book store in Silverlake called Long Leash and today’s the first day of their pop-up with Capsule so we drove over there to check it out. We got the issue with Barragan on the cover, stoked!

6pm

Back home. We live like 5 min away from our studio. We make a snack and send out a few more formas emails. Although our work day is technically over, we never turn it off. You'll see us reaching out to people at 11 pm or looking for shit on craigslist in the middle of the night. 

7pm 

We ended the day at a park near our house. We usually come here to take the dog for a walk. The best thing about this park is that you can see the Iwatta house by Pierre Koenig from there! We live in Alhambra so it feels rare to come across something like this. When we first noticed it we thought it was a library.