Made in NC: Carlisle & Linny Vintage Jewelry

By: Praveena Somasundaram

When she was younger, Lindsley Bowen would accompany her parents when they went shopping for antiques. Bowen was the only one of four children who enjoyed these trips.

“I would pick up jewelry and purses with what little money I had earned,” Bowen said. “And then I started taking broken vintage pieces of jewelry and remaking them.”

Bowen’s love of antiques has flourished since then. Now, she owns Carlisle & Linny Vintage Jewelry, a shop in downtown Hillsborough that specializes in selling costume and fine estate jewelry.

Bowen graduated from UNC in 1995 after studying art history and studio art. After graduation, she worked various jobs, including teaching English in South Korea and directing special events at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, before heading to New York and working at a hedge fund.

“But on weekends and nights, I found another job where I was apprenticing in a vintage jewelry shop in SOHO,” Bowen said. “And I loved that so much that when I moved back to North Carolina in 2011, I started searching for how I could open my own shop.”

She opened Carlisle & Linny three years later.

Opening her dream business was a scary feat for Bowen but, at the time, the real estate market made it easy to negotiate for a space to house her shop. The store is now located 112 S. Churton St. in historic downtown Hillsborough.

“It was just perfect that I could open and not be too worried about my overhead,” Bowen said.

Since then Bowen’s business has endured many changes, including relocations and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.

A few months ago, Bowen had been interviewing candidates to hire at Carlisle & Linny, but the pandemic halted that process. The shop is now open only four days a week, with private appointments to buy or sell jewelry available before and after work hours.

Adapting to this new normal, Bowen started looking into online selling and created Vintage at a Distance sales – posts of jewelry for sale on the shop’s social media that allow customers to view and purchase jewelry entirely online.

“The online business is just up and down,” Bowen said. “It’s been fun to learn and hopefully that’ll keep us going through Christmas and help out with that.”

The relationships Bowen has created with the local community over the past six years have kept her shop alive. Although, with online business and less foot traffic, she misses seeing familiar faces.

“I look forward to laughing and seeing smiles again without masks,” Bowen said. “But if we continue with the masks, we’ve all learned how to smile through our eyes.”

Despite the uncertainty, Bowen is hopeful about the future of Carlisle & Linny because of customers who, like her, have a heart for antiques. Just a couple of weeks ago, a customer told Bowen they loved coming in because it was like a “museum where you can touch.”

“They love coming in,” she said. “You come in and it’s like walking into your grandmother’s jewelry store. So I keep going for that.”

Carlisle and Linny’s hours of operation and other events can be found on the shop’s social media. Currently it’s open with limited hours Wednesday through Saturday and is located at 112 S. Churton St. in Hillsborough. Local staff, faculty and students are able to get a 10% discount on purchases through the end of October.