VIETRI's First Warehouse Sale

The first VIETRI Flaw Sale (our original name for our Warehouse Sale) was in the living room of my house.

My husband and I gave up our second living room in 1984 to be the VIETRI office for my sister, our jack-of-all-trades assistant and me in our first operating year. Our fourth VIETRI worker was a college student who would come by the house from the University of North Carolina campus to pick up orders and then would drive twenty miles to our rented warehouse space in Durham to pick and box the orders until the UPS man came in the late afternoons.

We collected enough slightly flawed pieces from our handcrafted, handpainted dinnerware, plus a few samples of things we’d considered adding to our line of products for top specialty stores and Neiman Marcus, to have our first company sale in the fall. The items filled our dining room table and a slew of tables we assembled on the big covered porch that ran along the back of the house.

We advertised by calling everyone we knew in town who would like VIETRI. That Saturday morning at 8:00 – just as there has been for every VIETRI Fall Warehouse Sale – there was a line of excited ladies, and a few men, waiting in line for the front door to open.

I remember how thrilled Susan and I were that our town’s famous ex-movie star and the president of the university’s wife were almost first in line at 7:45 a.m. The president’s wife, Mrs. Friday, was chatting breezily with lots of people in line and continued to do so when the door opened at 8 a.m. Her dear friend, Mrs. Kaiser, the ex-movie star, promptly quit talking at 8 and dove silently into the house and along every horizontal space piled with VIETRI treasures.

For years, Mrs. Friday would talk about how her friend Georgia got all the best bargains and she missed them all due to “visiting” with shoppers. Famous throughout our university town as great friends, Mrs. Kaiser never gave up one of her VIETRI treasures to her best friend, Mrs. Friday. They returned to our annual Fall Sale for years and both shopped silently and intently from start to triumphant finish. Today, our Warehouse Sale is brimming with special Italian handcrafted products now retired or slightly flawed, samples and even especially ordered items. Perhaps Mrs. Kaiser and Mrs. Friday will be good models for many a successful VIETRI shopper, though it’s now so ample in products – that it’s more easy going today! So please join us October 1-3, 8 a.m.- 2 p.m. at our Warehouse in Hillsborough for the 2011 Fall Warehouse Sale and help us continue a great tradition!

Check our website for more details and early bird tickets!

-Frances Gravely, VIETRI Founder