In today’s podcast, Toma Clark Haines, CEO of The Antiques Diva and Co, visits with Rudy of Collected by Schwung, a wholesaler in High Point, North Carolina, and known by many as Schwung Home. Collected by Schwung is “a creative studio with the heart of a collector and the hands of a maker. They imagine, design, build, and gather an endlessly evolving family of desirable objects that bring energy, warmth, and pleasure to personal spaces of every kind. They are obsessive accumulators—of objects, stories, and people. They’re constantly growing their unique archive of useful, whimsical, and beautiful pieces that have lived—and will live—for years and generations to come.” 

This episode is chock full of the secrets of the antique-sellers universe. Self-described as “passionate creatives and obsessive collectors,” they buy in France, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia, and Chechnya. They then restore the items in Poland and ship them to their 60,000 square foot show house in an old hosiery mill in High Point, North Carolina where they sell these unique treasures to designers and industry insiders. A born entrepreneur, Rudy got his start when he sold ice cream in Antwerp on these special tricycles he made. He was selling ice cream in the antique district when he became captivated by the antique stores and what he was seeing. He began interacting with the dealers and listening to their stories. He became so enraptured with the world of antiques that he ended up selling the ice cream tricycle business and buying into one of the antique stores. Schwung has 25 people involved in making the magic happen, but Rudy and Dominique handle all the purchasing. 

“The purchasing part is always the biggest success of whatever happens after,” explains Rudy, and Toma enthusiastically agrees. “The first criteria when I purchase something is if I really, truly want to have that piece for myself—if I had it in five years, would I still be happy with it? This automatically transfers to your audience. The pieces that you curate—they tell the right story. They have the right quality to find a new home.” Rudy and Dominique have done an amazing job of bringing the European experience stateside and then elevating it beyond what you see in Europe. “They truly take it to the next level—it is destination shopping at its best. You must make the trip to visit Schwung Home in real life. There is nothing else like it in America,” Toma encourages her listeners. They have worked hard to create a space where they want to be and you will too!

Rudy and Dominique not only sell exquisite antiques, but they create lighting fixtures that are truly out of this world. “We’re collecting the antiques and creating the heirlooms of the future. Dominique was a jewelry designer that is now a designer of lighting. After all,” says Rudy, “Lighting is the jewels for the home.”

Join Toma and Rudy for a lesson in buying, collecting and creating. Learn the photography tricks that make their antiques online as close to reality as possible for their buyers. And listen in to absorb a wealth of essential industry success strategies. When Toma first entered their showroom in High Point, it took her breath away and she had one thought: “Now this is how we do it!” If you have a passion for antiques and a desire to learn and grow your antiques business, you will not want to miss this episode!