Moura Starr's Rising Star

A shared vision to provide definitive singular furniture for every living space in the home breathes life into the partnership between a talented Brazilian design team and manufacturer, and an American distributor.

After spending eight years building her upscale home furnishings retail and manufacturing business into a highly successful enterprise, Shelley Badauy just naturally assumed that she'd reached the top of her game: stores on both U.S. coasts, a factory producing top-notch, high-end, much in demand furniture and a loyal client following.

That is until she took a stroll down a street in Sao Paulo, Brazil one day.

What she saw was innovative, perfectly crafted furniture that would become the new heart of her business.

"I'm one of those types who only wants to deal with the best," Badauy, thefounder of Atmosphere (today Moura Starr), notes. "And this furniture definitely fit that description. It was very different from what I'd been doing up until that point, but in the few minutes it took for me to go into that store in Sao Paulo and see these pieces, I knew my whole business model would be taking a new turn."

In short order, Badauy tracked down the design team responsible for the furniture. Graca Kazan and Luis Mario Moura, who together had been running their own furniture manufacturing interest M. Brazil - for 6 1/2 years. The gifted designers were virtually unknown outside of their country.

For Moura Starr it was a winning partnership. To take their business to the next level, Kazan and Moura needed a business partner to steer them in marketing and distribution. Because M. Brazil had its own factory, as well as products destined to become spectacular hits with Moura Starr's upscale U.S. audience, the outlook for a winning partnership couldn't have been brighter.

The Perfect Partnership
Moura Starr is the now exclusive distributor for the M. Brazil line in the U.S. in its stores in New York and Los Angeles.

Visit www.mourastarr.com to view gallery or products.