Local vendors see a surge of younger shoppers, rebelling against fast furniture and boring décor
Story and photos by Carin Hall
As someone who didn’t grow up in North Carolina, one of the first things I noticed about Wilmington was the sheer number of antique shops. Sure, we have the big-box stores you’d expect in any American town, but there’s only one Target, a long-abandoned Kmart, and the nearest IKEA is nearly 200 miles away. My old, millennial-gray-loving, everything-must-be-organized-into-acrylic-containers self would have scoffed. But I, like many, have abandoned previously trending aesthetics for something more personal: style that tells a story and furniture with details and made from non-synthetic wood.
Renowned interior designer and guest speaker at this spring’s Design NC event, Marshall Watson, told me not to be too hard on myself for mimicking trends, which are often indicative of an emotional reaction. “It was just our environment,” he says. “Gray was very chic at that time. It was a calming down of the noise that was surrounding us.” In other words, a backlash to the stress and clutter many millennials grew up around…