Today we’d like to introduce you to Coreen Arnold and Stacy Powers.
Coreen and Stacy, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
We began with a shared love for vintage tableware, which we had for many years. Both of our interest was fueled by our mothers’ passion for setting a beautiful table and also our personal family collections. After successful careers in bank regulatory law, we launched our business to pursue our passion for vintage china, flatware, glassware, and linens. Our goal was to bring new life to old things as mixed and coordinated table decor which could be rented for special occasions of all kinds, including intimate dinner parties, tea party showers, and even large wedding receptions. Chicago is a city with many wonderful venues that evoke styles and settings we love to compliment with our mixed and coordinated vintage place settings. Most of our collection was acquired through careful searching at Chicago area estate sales. We have curated our inventory of different styles by using different patterns ranging from antique early century collections to more mid century and late century modern pieces from the 20th century.
We also recognized that modern city living does not always afford the room for storing family heirlooms, so many city dwellers do not have access to those heirlooms for hosting special occasions. We wanted to offer an alternative to owning and storing your own collections by offering rental of heirloom tableware. Our clients especially like the option we can provide to use new choices with each event that can be returned to us for washing! Our goal is to keep these beautiful items out of landfills and enjoyed again in beautiful table settings for new generations. We won’t even throw away broken or damaged items. We have partnered with Chicago area artists to donate these items for their use creating beautiful pieces of art, giving them yet another life.
We have become known as a 5-star vintage rental company. For example, we were recently rated in the top 3 of Chicago area rental companies by ThreeBestRated.com.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been a learning experience during the first few years, including finding steady business and providing our product at affordable prices. Our collection is vast, so we must store a lot of inventory. We have learned through the years the styles that clients want and those that are not in demand. We learned we could sell specialty items at local vintage markets to help to help alleviate our tendency to over acquire inventory. We also discovered that we can help clients looking for vintage pieces add to or even start a collection, so we offer our inventory for sale and we even ship throughout the country.
Our struggles have included finding the right space to fit all of our inventory, where we would have access to our collection when hosting client meetings. We have settled in the Industrial Corridor operated by the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago, where we are located in an incubator building that houses many small start-up companies like ours. We have access to needed storage space and proximity to downtown and areas in Chicago where many events are held, as well as amenities like a freight elevator and loading dock. We especially enjoy being part of a community of small entrepreneurs all hoping to grow their businesses in Chicago.
Searching for clients is always a difficult process. We retired from totally unrelated careers, and our knowledge of social media and how we can harness its potential to reach clients has been challenging. We have found camaraderie with other vendors in the event industry. We benefit from those associations in terms of friendship and also assistance in sharing potential clients. One great example is our membership in the Green Wedding Alliance, where we can promote greener weddings through sharing our eco-friendly practices and helping to get the word out that couples can have greener weddings through many simple steps like looking for eco-friendly vendors.
Have we had struggles with bumps along the way? You bet! But we have enjoyed the ride, learned a lot and are still learning.
Vintage Place Settings – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are most proud of our our extensive and beautiful Chicago-sourced collection as well as our eco-friendly practices. We purchase most of our items from Chicago area estate sales. This city has so many wonderful neighborhoods of families who often lived in Chicago for generations. Many times those families have passed down beautiful china, flatware, and glassware that have graced their tables for decades to celebrate holidays, marriages, new babies, and any special occasion that might arise. Through the years as we shopped estate sales, we saw that these collections were being left behind by younger generations. We wanted to bring them back as new collections mixed and matched in new ways to showcase their beauty and bring them back to life for use in special celebrations. And we wanted to make their use more accessible to city dwellers by offering them for rent and handling the storage and dish washing ourselves. We also wanted to rescue these family heirlooms from being thrown away or boxed up and stored out of sight and use. Sometimes people keep cherished family collections out of sight to “keep” them nice. Many clients are surprised to learn that that the life of many tableware items are enhanced when used and washed regularly.
What sets us apart is that we don’t simply offer vintage rentals, we offer personalized help in selecting the pieces to rent. Our inventory is curated into collections that have a coordinated color or style. Patterns are mixed so that they appear they were meant to be together, even though the pieces of our settings may include several totally different patterns, manufacturers, and even composition. We like to meet with clients (or share photos if clients are located outside Chicago) to show examples we have styled based on their desired look or vision. We can even style guest tables to make sure that each place setting looks great with every other setting on that table. For example, if a client wants each table to have a different look, we might style each place setting with a different color of glassware, but each place setting at a particular table will otherwise be the same or similar. Each table could have an entirely different mix of patterns that coordinates with the first table, but is unique in its style and look. Whether someone likes funky geometric, formal neutral colors with metallic glam, or beautiful florals that evoke garden tea parties, we can find a mix that suits our client’s ideas. Clients are not limited to a random mix of patterns and may personally select the colors, patterns and styles of tableware they like from our inventory. We believe that this unique service and ability to personally select the pieces we use from our collection is what sets us apart.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Our proudest moment so far, besides our 5 star client reviews, has been our feature in the December issue of Vogue. We were pleasantly surprised when a Vogue editor called us to ask about our business, and in particular whether we would ship our inventory across the country to clients in New York and Los Angeles. We have been doing that for a long time, but had never before been able to reach such a large audience of city dwellers in the pages of a print and online publication with nationwide circulation.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2023 West Carroll Ave., Chicago, IL 60622
- Website: vintageplacesettings.com
- Phone: 708-436-4969 Coreen 847-904-3333 Stacy
- Email: vintageplacesettings@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vintageplacesettings/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vintageplacesettings/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/vintage-place-settings-chicago
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/vintageplaceset/?sender=273593883521188528&invite_code=8be931e4d85b4d96905a0f72db7e7cae
Image Credit:
k + b photography, Justina Louise Photography, City Love Photography, Genevieve Lauren Photography
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