BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT - MULBERRY LANE RESALE SHOPPE

Mulberry Lane Resale Shoppe was presented the Business Spotlight Award by the Water Valley Area Chamber of Commerce on Monday, February 12.

First launched by the Chamber in 2016, the award honors merchants, businesses and individuals who excel in their support of the community and are involved in local activities.

Mulberry Lane Resale Shoppe opened its doors in March of 2023 and is the brainchild of Clant Harrison and his wife, Katelynn Dillard. They run the shop together, and often bring their 2 year old daughter, Rosemary, to work with them.

Clant grew up in Pontotoc, where he learned an appreciation of all things history from his father, Dr. Charles Harrison. As a teen, Clant developed a love for running that brought him to Water Valley for the first time. “I ran a lot of road races when I was a youngster. One of my favorites each year was at the Watermelon Carnival. The heat was tough, but the festival was a delight, and the fresh watermelon really hit the spot” said Clant.

Clant graduated from Pontotoc high school in 1998, then attended college at Ole Miss and continued to frequent Water Valley. “My friends and I regularly roundtripped to the Valley to peruse our favorite shop, Blue Heaven. From first moment in that shop, I’ve been addicted to vintage” says Clant.

Since graduating college, Clant has made a career in the restaurant industry, where he was able to hone his skills and develop a love of cooking. Since 2013, Clant has practiced his culinary arts at Lenora’s Restaurant in Oxford, where he was head chef until 2022 and worked on his specialty of making fresh pasts from scratch.

The year 2013 was special for another reason; it was also the year that he met his wife, Katelynn. Katelynn moved to this area in 2011 when she started at Ole Miss. She graduated with a degree in Biology, but loves gardening, environmental education and art.

She worked for the USDA after college, but her true passion is teaching, and has worked as an outdoor educator ever since. “While I was in college, I shopped a lot at Rip-It-Up, it’s one of the things that brought me to the Valley, and it was the first vintage shop I’d ever stepped foot in. Water Valley is such a warm and welcoming place, the whole town feels like the neighborhood I grew up in, and I knew I wanted to start a family here” says Katelynn.

In 2018, the couple bought their first house, got married in the backyard and made Water Valley their home. They have been renovating their turn of the century farmhouse, and decorating it with vintage finds ever since. “It’s important to us to preserve the historical character, and charm of our old house. It’s the main thing that got me interested in vintage, and the perspective we’ve gained from restoring our home has, to a large degree, shaped everything we stock at Mulberry Lane” says Katelynn.

The couple approaches running Mulberry Lane from a conservation standpoint. “A big goal of mine is to salvage as many materials as possible. Mississippi is such a beautiful place, I’d hate to see our resources get thrown out, and languish in a landfill” says Katelynn.

But Clant has a different perspective “every item in the shop has a unique story, and there’s a spiderweb of history behind it that connects them all, revealing the story of times past, and learning about these relics from our community’s history can help shape our future.”

Clant and Katelyn started collecting vintage together when they were dating, but it quickly became a shared passion which led them to selling vintage via a booth at the BTC and at yard sales, and they used the money they made from that to open their storefront. “We started Mulberry Lane as a way to make a living on our own, for our growing family, everything we do is with our daughter, Rosemary in mind” says Clant.