The case for vintage sourcing

Vintage shopping is like a treasure hunt, one that I relish. For the uninitiated, vintage stores, markets, and estate sales can be overwhelming. Here’s a quick and dirty guide to how to approach the market.

Come with a vision—and measurements

With so many pieces on display and often in piles, it can be visually overstimulating to pick through what’s there. Zero in on some wishlist categories before arriving: art, specific pieces of furniture, or dishware, perhaps. If you have colors, patterns, or a specific decade style in mind, you’ll be faster to go from whatever catches your eye (often everything or nothing) to being intentional with your time and money. 

For furniture and art, knowing the measurements, even roughly, is everything. Nothing is worse than missing out on a piece because you can’t tell if it will fit in that very specific nook or if that coffee table is going to be proportional to your couch. Try to always have a measuring tape. I cannot stress enough what a rookie move it has been for past me to have to walk away from a potentially perfect piece because I wasn’t confident in my ability to guess the dimensions.

Get the deets from the vendor:

One of my favorite parts about interior design work is that you meet so many experts in interesting niches. Let’s just say that I am delighted to now know that this world is a far more lovely place because there exist drywall experts, wallpaper connoisseurs, and tile aficionados. Vintage sellers are no exception. They typically can answer your questions about what period, style, and material your item of interest is. 

Often, there’s a backstory that makes the piece even more one-of-a-kind. For instance, we got a beautiful Monet exhibit print framed in a cobalt blue frame. That framing alone would have been far more costly to do at a framing shop than the selling price of the piece. But what it special and not just a great deal, was that it came from a sentimental and meticulous owner who had saved the 1990 exhibit brochure and their ticket and attached it to the back of their piece. 

Do your own research

I was raised by a mom who loved the “Guess how much?” game that many AAPI kids of immigrants might be familiar with. The better the deal, the more clout you have. Well, let’s just say I’m the second-generation millennial version of that when I’m at the market. With the details from the vendor, I often like to do a quick search of the item on a site like 1st Dibs to see the going price of similar pieces. My favorite “Guess how much?” story to date has to be a Laurence Peabody mustard lounge chair that was going for $300.00 at the market but online it was… drumroll please… going for nearly $4,000.00 a piece! While I could easily mark that up for a client, I’d say that the thrill of the chase and the joy of the “guess how much” game is payment enough. 

Now, the threat of the tariff price increases alone might be compelling enough for folks to return to vintage. But once you really get into it, there’s something exceptionally special about getting pieces that have unique stories and history to them. Not to mention, the craftsmanship and longevity of many of these pieces far exceed what we, unfortunately, get mass-produced environment. And if that’s not enough, maybe you’ll get the thrill of having something in your home that simply is one of one.