This is us. We rarely post a photo with us in it but we like connecting with you on a personal level and think it’s good to put faces with names. We are not just an antiques show, we are real people that love what we do and want to share with you why we do it.
Karen Luisana @kluisana1antiques (on the right) and Amanda Kinney @amanda_lane (on the left) hosted the first Antique & Design Center show @antiquedesignct in High Point, NC in the fall of 2010.
Karen had been an antique dealer with a background in set design for advertising for many years. Amanda was a real estate broker turned professional wedding/portrait photographer who had recently moved back to NC to be close to family. After being family friends for many years, Amanda began working part time for Karen at Luisana Designs and Antiques, and helping her with her website, photography and branding. Their first buying trip together was way back in 1998 but we’ll save that story for another time.
In 2009, Karen saw that the antiques/design world was changing and she wanted to do something new by bringing all her favorite, secret sources together and sharing them with her customers in High Point and growing together. It seemed counterintuitive to give away her sources and share her customers with her competition, but she believed that by banding together and supporting each other that the antiques dealers and the interior designers would strengthen their businesses exponentially and that you can never dim your own candle by lighting someone else’s.
So she and Amanda set off to find the best dealers in the country and bring them back to High Point. That first show of 54 dealers felt so good that they decided to partner and continue the journey by moving to Market Square, growing the number of dealers and producing educational and social events during the show. 54 dealers turned into 75 and the event evolved into a “must-attend” destination as designers visited and found the soul they had been seeking for the spaces they were creating.
The show continues to be fresh and exciting each season as the dealers step up their game and challenge themselves and each other to keep raising the bar! #hpmkt #hpadc