October 26, 2026
By Michelle Madden
Photographs by Rana Faure
When you first walk into Upcycle Modern in Kent, the whimsical fusion of vintage finds and custom upholstery shop, your eyes are pulled in a myriad of directions. There’s the “Mona Lisa” on a decorative pillow, a buttery-smooth glass carafe sourced from Milan, and a tree trunk that pulls open to reveal two not terribly utilitarian shelves with a Chrysler Building peeking out the top. You don’t go here if you’re looking for white plates.
But it’s the back room, just big enough to hold a seven-foot couch, where Michael Jacoby, the owner of Upcycle Modern, works his upholstery magic. “Playroom in the front, workshop in the back,” is how he describes it. In addition to custom work, he travels to Europe twice a year to source fabric for items he sells in the shop.
Jacoby was first introduced to upholstery in high school. His family lived in a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles, where they were the only family that wasn’t. “I wanted a car, and the only way I was going to get one was to work,” he says. So at the suggestion of his sister’s boyfriend, he got a job at an upholstery shop, and after four years he had saved enough to buy a 1972 MGB convertible. He reupholstered it in green tweed—a rookie mistake for a convertible, he would come to realize.
After high school, he went to film school and worked in LA and later New York City, toiling away making minidocumentaries for ad agencies, only to feel completely hollow. Then Covid hit, and he and his partner retreated to their home in Kent. It was there that he had his aha moment: the time he had been happiest was when he was working with his hands, in a shop, with wood, thread, and fabric—in other words, as an upholsterer.
So at 50, he set out to become an apprentice. He joined The Upholstery Shed in New Milford, learning the intricate details of setting springs and lining up fabric. He realized how much he enjoyed “shop culture”—the colorful characters, the laughter. After five years, his boss told him, “Michael, you’ve learned everything there is to learn. It’s time to go.” And like a bird being nudged out of the nest, he was off.
His work is now sought after, due in large part to his handcrafted precision. “It’s a lot of math and measuring. You have to be fastidious,” he says. In Europe, there is still great respect for the trades; in America, however, Jacoby’s vocational path is rare, and there are few opportunities to even learn the craft. Jacoby recalls that several of his colleagues during his high school apprenticeship learned the trade while serving time in prison. “I see glimmers of hope that it might grow,” he says. “Like a Brooklyn hipster baking bread, people now think it’s cool that I reupholster.”
As we wander the shop,Jacoby points out a table artfully laid out with retro designer bags. “This collection was curated by an intern of mine,” he says. And so the apprenticeship begins. —upcyclemodern.com
