Silks and Treasures, a shop that offers both antiques and modern goods, stands as a home decor and gift shop on Main Street. This homey shop offers decorative home goods and stylish jewelry to all age groups.
Silks and Treasures features a variety of items ranging from antiques to lace. Pamela Schwarz, the owner of the shop, and her husband go to different gift shows in Chicago and Atlanta. There, they get ideas for what they want in their shop. Everything in the shop is selected with the goal to provide merchandise for both teenagers and adults. North sophomores Brooke McGlasson and Jennifer Ingoldsby like to go to the shop because of its unique collection of items.
“I really like the leaf candle because it is colorful and unique,” Jennifer said.
A lot of things in the shop are theme based for the season. During the fall, the store featured glass leaves and a few Halloween decorations. For Christmas time, they have snowman candles and glass Christmas trees.
“My favorite thing was the lace table cloths because they were handmade just for fall,” Brooke said.
The lace cloth at the shop is one of the more popular items. It’s also one of the first things Pamela sold when she opened the shop. Pamela and her husband bought the shop four and a half years ago after Pamela lost her job. At first, Pamela found it difficult to balance her work life at the store with her personal life. She had to pay bills, keep track of orders and do book work. She was working seven days a week.
“Not only is it working with public, but you have to be good at accounting,” Pamela said.
Pamela likes talking to the customers, and she finds while most of the attraction comes from locals, there are a lot of tourists throughout the year as well. According to Pamela, the shop mainly attracts middle aged women, but teenage girls enjoy the jewelry. Silks and Treasures shopper Megan Rosenkoetter goes there for their unique variety of gifts.
“They have different things,” Megan said. “If you go to Target or Walmart they have the same things, but their shop changes it up.”
Pamela wants to stress the fact that the whole point of the shops on Main Street is that they’re different. If someone went to a large chain store, they’d find the exact same thing, but the shops on Main Street have a more “homey” style.
“[People like it] just because of our variety; we try to have different things than anyone else, cheaper,” Pamela said.

Nick Bussell