Today we’d like to introduce you to Allyson Virden.
Hi Allyson, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Mid Mod Collective was started when a group of vintage furniture dealers decided to take our obsession with mid century modern furniture to the next level. We combined our love of mid century modern and our desire to create a space for beautiful furniture to the next level.
Mid Mod Collective as evolved over the last decade. We have sold thousands of pieces of vintage restored pieces. We added home decor and vintage clothing to round out our offerings.
Mid Mod Collective is about to enter its third chapter. As the partners are retiring, the original founders, Allyson and Chris Virden, will be taking the reigns and continuing to offer beautifully restored mid century modern and Danish modern furniture. We will be adding another layer of vintage clothing and carefully curated home decor.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The past eleven years have had their ups and downs. The pandemic brought on a whole other set of issues. From closing our store for a couple of months to sourcing inventory. Fortunately, we overcame those obstacles and continued to grow. We lost some partners and added some partners along the way.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Mid Mod Collective is a store located in Knoxville, TN. We focus on mid century modern and danish modern furniture. The thing we do best is restoring the pieces. That could be from simply cleaning each piece refinishing and reupholstering a piece. We take furniture that others might discard and bring them back to their full glory. We love the fact that we are giving these items another 60 years of use. We are keeping them out of the landfill and offering good quality furniture to our customers. This next chapter of Mid Mod Collective will be expanding the vintage clothing. We will also be adding danish chair re-cording to our offerings. Chris Virden, with Tennessee Chair Rescue, is a highly sought ofter chair restorer. He specializes in using danish paper cord to refurbish danish modern chairs.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. We never really had a mentor. We love mid century modern and danish modern furniture and we have done a ton of research on the subject. If we don’t know the answer, we asked people until we found someone who did. We have grown our network over the years to include people who specialize in different areas.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.midmodcollective.com
- Instagram: @midmodcollective
- Facebook: @MidModCollective
