Northern Liberties Boutique Trunc Is A Place For Artists Looking To Display Their Handmade Treasures
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - If you're a fan of one-of-a-kind items and unique creations, this week's Open for Business segment highlights a boutique that might be perfect for you. Eyewitness News reporter Vittoria Woodhill takes us to Trunc in Northern Liberties where they celebrate artists and creators that specialize in personal touch.
"A trunk can go through anything, it can go through a lot of things, you're not going to knock a trunk down," owners Dorothea Gamble and Dagmar Mitchell said. "We're rooted in the cycle of life."
In Northern Liberties, Trunc is an eclectic artisan boutique that is more than just a retail space, it's a mood. A place where owners Dorothea Gamble and Dagmar Mitchell have opened their hearts and hardwood shelves to artists looking to display their handmade treasures.
"This is mud cloth, and this is by Val Gay, and Dinga is one of our more famous artists. This is her clothing line here. Isn't that beautiful? She tie-dyes then screenprints," said Gamble.
What's the purpose for people?
"To get handmade products in every single home, to get our clients and consumers to understand the value of handmade as opposed to machine-made," Gamble said.
Mitchell adds, "It's made out of love. You can tell that person was passionate about their art as opposed to 20,000 machines."
Partners in business and in life, the stories of how they grew up couldn't be more different.
"I was born in Germany," Mitchell said. "Lived there for six years in an orphanage, was adopted and brought to this country. Lived a pretty good life. That's where we differed a little bit. I went to private school, Friends Central."
"I didn't grow up with any money, very, very poor family so I knew how to survive because of that. my mother was a DYI person. Did every single thing in the house: putting up paneling, building, plumbing, electricity, the whole nine yards," Gamble said.
But what roots them together in Trunc is their appreciation for the different and the many ways their artists tell us a story of who they are.
"Typically people go back to their ancestors or their grandparents or their family and they come up with something they're accustomed to," Gamble said. "It's nice to have a business that you can give back and you can support an artisan community. People love to invest in something, even if it's an idea. And then you want one of a kind so you can use it as an heirloom cause we don't have much of that anymore, we always talk about things our grandmother left us, but we're all going to be grandmothers at some point so we need to be leaving something to somebody."