In honor of Women’s History Month, I want to salute one of the great designers, who also happened to be a woman. If you love Modernism, you need to know Florence Knoll, the woman who made clean, functional, and “modern” the hallmarks of mid-20th-century design. Knoll had a degree in architecture, but at her first […]

A great, simple way to add some personality, color, and a touch of real nostalgia to your home is to use a few cafefully chosen vintage books.  There is warmth and dimension to classic hard-cover and leather-bound books.  If you are looking for some fun and a conversation starter, nothing beats vintage versions of childhood […]

  Vintage glassware is a big part of our inventory here at Allora Vintage.  My hometown was a glass-making center from the 1920’s through the 1980’s, and I’ve come into possession of lots of original, untouched glassware made by Hazel-Atlas, Brockway, and Anchor-Hocking. Most people just call any old white glassware “milk-glass,” but that’s not […]

With the turn of each year, and especially the turn of a decade, we get all kinds of predictions for the days ahead and the trends to come. Whatever develops in this new decade, the only sure prediction is that iconic trends and styles from the past will continue to influence our design choices, and what […]

Echoes in the mountains Allora Vintage comes from the mountains of north-central West Virginia and a small city that was home to thousands of Italian immigrants.  Our family has lived here for a few generations, working in the coal mines and on the railroad.  As many of that era, they saved and reused everything (How […]

Because we love the artifacts of history. I had the privilege of working at one of the world’s most venerated and historic institutions, the Smithsonian, where every day I was surrounded by some of the greatest “finds” you can ever imagine.  I got to go behind the scenes with renowned curators and world experts, seeing […]