Photo by Patrik Rytikangas

Albertine, Claudine and Leontine—the triumverate of boutiques in Kyung Lee’s domain, don’t peddle in perfection. The often one-of-a-kind bits of clothing look homemade, in a louche, elegant way (a delicately worked blouse, edged in lace, might be dyed with tea, for example). Lee’s home, tucked away on the second floor of a rickety West Village townhouse, evokes the same mood: Ornate gold mirrors show patina; a few intentional-seeming holes and tears dot her antique bedding; the china, all mismatched, reveals chips; the bright-blue canopy stripes in her walk-in closet aren’t exactly straight. “Perfection isn’t very interesting,” she explains.

And that sort of logic allows her to display gorgeous things (an opalescent blue bud vase with a single rose, bejeweled earrings hung over the edge of a lamp shade, old perfume bottles, a teetering stack of Technicolor dish towels), without making her apartment feel like an overly precious boudoir. “It’s my home,” she adds. “I want it to feel lived-in and comfortable, that things don’t have to always be a particular way.”