Noir
Five years ago, Pam Smith had a desire to leave her IT job and pursue darker interests.
“I was really inspired by an acceptance of darker things,” she says. “I wanted to incorporate something that I was passionate about with a mission.”
With her passion came Noir Arts & Oddities (1101 Mulberry St., Kansas City, Mo. 816- 533-4589, noirartsandoddities.com). The West Bottoms store describes itself as “creepy but cool” and is filled with crazy antiques like funerary artifacts (coffins, tombstones, urns), taxidermy, Victorian furniture and moody local art.
Smith says the West Bottoms location provides ample space for gatherings and events like taxidermy classes, Edgar Allen Poe birthday parties and Civil War-era surgery aficionado discussions.
After telling me about the autopsy table she recently sold, Smith perfectly sums up Noir and its customers: “Us weirdos gotta stick together.”
