Fill out your furniture needs. Austin Connoisseur Episode “Austin Modern vintage Furniture” Elle Green: I don’t think I have a piece of furniture that I haven’t tired of in about five years. Well, um, if you’re a collector and you’re attracted to it and you’re buying it continuously. You need to have a outlet. If you’re a collector you cannot, not buy. Pretty much everybody in my family is involved in the arts or antiques or collecting, buying or selling. And it’s just a kind of a natural progression. My name is Elle Green and I own Austin Modern. Vintage furniture, 20th century antiques, mainly ranging from art deco all the way up through 70’s high design. I have been working in vintage for 20 years. I am 37 years old, so that’s almost half of my life. I am a bit of a history buff, and you see a lot of historical events reflected in design of the period. With art deco you have a lot of Egyptian influences, and it’s because they discovered tuts tomb, around the same time. So that in itself is kind of fascinating to me. We like items in the best possible condition, or the most unique items. We try to find items that are not easily found. That’s pretty much what we are known for, is furniture and being fanatical about quality. We go out of our way to make sure that the items we have are going to last and are worthy of collecting. Versus the $10 dollar table because you just need a $10 dollar table. There are people that are collecting; there are people that are trying to fit a new house they just bought. There are interior decorators that are just trying to get that one fabulous crazy piece to make a home different. A lot of people are in there 30’s. They grew up in divorced households, but they love 50’s furniture. They grew up watching reruns of “Leave it to Beaver”. And so they are trying to capture this lifestyle that they never lived. You know a family unit, a mom who cooks dinner. And so for some people it really resonates, bringing about a past that they never actually had. Which is kind of a trip too. It would be great if you could just walk into a thrift store, garage sale, or an estate sale. But with the advent of the internet, there’s not a lot of things coming on to the market that people don’t know what they are, the likelihood of finding an item somewhere, where people don’t know exactly what it is, and what its worth is close to nil, so theres a lot of driving and travel involved. Vintage stores are completely different. Antique stores are completely different from normal retail businesses. Especially here in Austin, um, they like to be grouped together. And so it’s more of a destination. Like here on north loop we have five vintage stores. And we are not really in competition with each other. Its kind of creating a community for people who are in to vintage shopping. So we have gone so far as to print up the vintage guide to around town. Which list all the stores in Austin. It has a map, and will tell people what those stores carry, what they specialize in, where there located and how to find them. And any of the stores listed in the vintage guide will have copies of that. Plus there in a lot of the hotels downtown. So is not hard for someone who is visiting Austin to find where all the vintage stores are. It’s really crucial for someone looking for an item to do a little bit of homework. The first thing to do would be to educate yourself as to what it is that you’re looking for. You know what the market is; you know what the price range is going to be for that item. It’s just a bummer for anybody to make the mistake of buying something, paying a high price for it. Then finding out its not really worth what they thought it was. Having some sort of education and giving yourself a little bit of knowledge before you go out and buy is crucial. And dont always rely on whoever is selling you the item to give you the whole back story. Because they might not have it. The second thing that I would say is check in, you know pick out those stores that regularly carry those items. Check in regularly and let them know, Hey I am looking for a credenza. If you are looking for something specific, I would definitely let a dealer who specializes in that know what it is what you’re looking for. They will look for you and contact you if they have one. And you should never feel obligated to buy that item. If someone makes you feel that they found something specifically for you and now you need to purchase it from them. That’s probably the store that you don’t want to shop at. Dealers will know who has what, and ask several different stores. Not everybody wants to send customers here there and yonder. My thought process on it is, if I don’t have an item, its not going to hurt me to tell you who does. You know these items are 40, 60 years old r older. They are going to have life; they are going to have age. They are going to have a little bit, I call it soul. These items are not perfect. They have had a life and they have been around. They have seen the world. They have seen many persons and many things, there are no perfect pieces. When it comes to condition, you need to almost expect an item to not be immaculate. If you’re looking for something that is one hundred percent perfect, you need to buy a reproduction. It’s a common misconception that stores want to bargain and you know; go back and forth on the price. Really we don’t. We really, really don’t. It’s such a drag. But you know, stop in even if it’s not to buy, stop in, look around see what they have new, say hello. Keep your face fresh in their mind, and they will always keep you in mind when they find something interesting hat you might like. My name is Elle Green, and I’m a connoisseur.
