Material Culture

I am from out of town and had time before my "real reason" for my trip to Philly for a 'side quest' as my kids would say. I plugged the address in my nav but it took me to a random place. I called the store and the wonderful woman who answered talked me around the block and into the lot! They have a huge selection and reasonable prices. I caught them during a sale and the owner was sweet enough to even give me a little something more off the already reduced amazing sale price! So many beautiful things I wish had more rooms in my house! This will be my favorite souvenir!

Safe free parking. Beautiful objects to buy. The staff are extremely nice and helpful. I would highly recommend this place for others to go for their needs.

Unbelievable place filled with handmade rugs, very affordable for the quality. Feels like shopping in Turkey. They also have cool, unique furniture and art. There are a lot of people working who can answer questions and carry rugs to your car. We went for their Labor Day sale and cookout, it was a lot of fun! Can’t wait to go back!

I've been a long time customer of Material Culture, mainly for auction items, but recently acquired some rugs and took them to Material Culture for cleaning given they seem to be one of the highest volume rug dealers in the area and have been doing this for years. I paid hundreds of dollars for heavy cleaning, but unfortunately the rugs came back still embedded with candle wax and moth silks. Jennifer (who has been excellent to work with) was not there when I picked up, but her boss Mehmet was. You can see the issues in the photos I posted, and I voiced these exact concerns to Mehmet and he simply could not have cared less, expecting me to simply pay and leave with rugs that were not properly cleaned. I ended up reaching out to Tribal Loom (who Material Culture uses for their cleaning service) and the owner there was so embarrassed the rugs had gone out the door in the state they were in he immediately asked me to bring the rugs back in for remedial cleaning, resolving the matter in a professional way that I'd hoped would have happened from the get go. So in addition to Mehmet's rudeness, I as a customer had to reach out to their supplier to get matters resolved AND spend my time bringing my rugs back in for remedial cleaning (and pickup) when they should have never gone out the door in that condition to begin with. A serious waste of my time by someone in a manager level position who should know better, but simply didn't give a care. When I dropped the rugs back off, Mehmet didn't seem to know why I was there and struggled to even locate my customer records in their system. Jennifer has been great to work with, and I had the chance to meet the owner George when I did pick up for the remedial cleaning. George seemed interested to hear of the experience I had and responsive to feedback. I still absolutely recommend Material Culture for their auctions, but if you're shopping rugs go in some day when Mehmet isn't working.

It’s unexpectedly pleasant hidden gem of Philadelphia. Proper place for the hunters of exotic antiquities (mostly from South and South-Eastern Asia).