Market Recap

Ellery and I are back from the Atlanta Gift Market. We flew out last Wednesday afternoon and returned early yesterday morning, just in time to land, go to Trader’s Joe, and be back in Columbia by lunch. And as always, we had the best time. People always want to understand market more and there’s really no good way to describe it, except to say we walked 14.21 miles in three days just SHOPPING.

To set the scene, the market in Atlanta is three buildings and each building is 18 floors. That’s a lot of things to see, right? And look, there was a lot of stuff in those three buildings and 54 floors that don’t remotely pertain to PJP. Did that stop us from perusing through? Of course not. If there’s a showroom where Kim Kardashian comes to buy light fixtures that cost more than most people’s cars, you better believe we are investigating those fancy - albeit arguably minimalist - lighting options. (Not that Kim Kardashian visited during market…or probably ever. But interior designers and their clients are able to shop the market showrooms year round.)

But at any rate, we experienced shopping success and found all sorts of cute things for both PJPs. And I know we both enjoyed the opportunity to be surrounded by other people just trying to figure out successful purchasing and merchandising like we are always doing. There is reassurance in hearing others question aloud “do we think this will sell?”. And also, when we literally had a limp from the thousands of steps we took in our not comfortable shoes, watching someone else take off her boots and walk through market in her socks was a vibe we totally understood. (By Thursday, I was compelled to convince Jason to overnight ship my Hokas to me. I didn’t, mainly because it seemed ridiculous. But then by late Friday afternoon, I was full of regret.)

We generally stay at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta, which is a huge hotel and sort of the the-place-to-be in downtown Atlanta. Over 1,000 kids from the Greek Orthodox Church were there for a weekend dancing competition, which made for great people watching in the evenings. At one point, the bishop for the church arrived to mass fanfare and it was fascinating to watch him greet the dancers, have his ring kissed, and stand patiently for pictures. (And then he had dinner at the hotel steak house and had dinner at the hotel steakhouse. Huh. Who would have guessed?)

So we are back, with no trips planned until at least early May. And that’s good because it will probably take my feet that long to recover. But if Kim asked me to go look at chandeliers, I could probably rally some energy for that…