Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeffrey Moss.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jeffrey. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’ve been collecting things for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, it was rocks (polished and otherwise), porcelain dogs, books, various sorts of toys, records … lots of different collections. And I’ve been arranging those collections for just as long. My first job, at age fifteen, was handling shipping and receiving for a bookstore—and doing the displays. That led to bigger career choices in creative services, first doing merchandising and display at retail, then graphic design for free-lance clients, then combining all of that at Eddie Bauer in Seattle, managing retail creative services for a $2 billion company. Along the way, as happens with folks in this line of work, I picked up influences. The big ones were Scandinavian design, which I’ve been exposed to the longest, then the Shakers and their love of beauty and utility, then the big daddy, my most favorite of all: Japanese design and aesthetics.
After leaving Eddie Bauer in the early noughties I decided to go back to school, and earned a BFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), graduating in 2006. During that time I worked as a prop stylist on commercial photo shoots, for Pottery Barn, Target, Frontgate, Crate&Barrel, and others. It was traveling for those shoots, and shopping for them, that ultimately led to opening my own shop—an opportunity to bring together all my collecting, training, experience, passions and influences.
Has it been a smooth road?
Is there a road out there that’s smooth? I suppose there probably is, but in the end my favorite stories are always the ones which took some working out. Right? I’ve always felt and thought my way along the road, more or less made it up as I’ve gone along. Creative work is inherently challenging. It’s not really natural to pour your heart and soul (and sweat!) into one piece of work and then put it out in front of people who promptly tear it apart with criticism. That process has to be learned and mastered if one piece of work is to become a body of work. Let alone a career. But in retrospect there is so much reward from that learning! It is the meaning of meaning and it can’t be faked.
The newest challenge is learning the nuts and bolts of running an independent retail business. I would say “don’t get me started” about those challenges, but I have gotten started! Ask me in five years.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
My business has two interrelated divisions. On the one hand, I continue to work as a prop stylist and soft stylist for commercial photo shoots, and am probably most proud of the long relationship I’ve had with the folks at Pottery Barn. It’s been more like a family relationship through the years, if I’m honest. At times, anyway. They’re a demanding client, always challenging, always pushing forward, always wanting to be the most authoritative in their field. But it’s been keeping up with that level of pressure which, looking back at it, has kept me moving forward, always wanting to master the challenge. I’m so thankful.
And now there’s Great Lakes Home, coming up on its first anniversary. It’s here that I want to bring together my love of a simple lifestyle, love of real material and comfort, love of design, of unusual things (and especially collections of unusual things!), and love of really fine customer service. I look at the next ten years as my opportunity to craft the retail experience into the kind of thing I crave: attentive, genuine, and susceptible to beauty.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
There are times when I think Chicago is a great place for a shop like Great Lakes Home. Other times, less so. I don’t think this is unique to Chicago by any means, but there is an ever-increasing tendency to look for the very lowest price, delivered instantaneously with one click … whatever’s easiest and cheapest. It’s difficult to go up against those expectations, and the ginormous retailers which deliver on them. I’ve never had any of my friends in retail recommend starting a retail business. In fact, they have actively warned against it, using very colorful language! So we’ll see. I’m not really in a position right now to recommend anything to anyone—unless you’re working on your home or looking for a great gift. 😉
Contact Info:
- Address: Great Lakes Home
2005 South Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60608 - Website: www.greatlakeshome.com
- Phone: (312) 526-3412
- Email: hello@greatlakeshome.com
- Instagram: @greatlakeshome
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greatlakeshomechicago/
- Twitter: gr8lakeshome
- Yelp: https://biz.yelp.com/home/IbdKfiq3BqgVfAO-96KXNw/
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/greatlakeshome/boards/
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