Sustainable and often hyperlocal
The value of vintage
Not only do young people seem awfully quick to get themselves to market these days, many also appear exceptionally adept at reading — and responding to — exactly what that market wants in the moment.
Take freelance designer Larisa Mancini, who just turned 25. The idea of an online décor shop only formed earlier this year, as she and her partner furnished a new apartment.
“With COVID, we ended up looking at online furniture reselling sites, and vintage accounts.” Even after her own pad was furnished, Mancini kept on “finding amazing pieces, and felt inclined to share them with people.”
Response to @shoppe. clover was immediate and encouraging, says Mancini, who now posts weekly collections of items on Instagram.
“They often sell within a couple of days. If they don’t sell there, I try other sites,” she says. “I am still new, so I’m experimenting with what works.”
She currently offers curbside pickup and delivery for a fee.
It helps that Mancini worked as a public relations/ social media co-ordinator for several years with décor/ design retailer Homesense, where she was part of a team that produced high-quality lifestyle photography and sets.
That, she says, taught her how to make a piece “stand out in a crowd.”
It’s a skill that comes in handy with items in the estate sales she sources from, which are often not well-styled.
“You need an eye what will look beautiful in a different setting,” she says.
It also helps that Mancini’s partner has some woodworking and refinishing skills, and that she herself has “a little bit” of experience with refinishing and reupholstering. She hopes to work more with those and other trades once the world returns to normal, and to do vintage shows or weekend popups. In the meantime, she’s learning and networking.
“I’ve been able get acquainted with several other shops. I think as long as you are selling desirable pieces that are true to your own style and you kind of have the social media thing under your belt, you have a good chance of success,” says Mancini.
Katrina Huang, also 25, is similarly confident about her online home décor venture. Viridi began in the summer of 2020 when the process of looking for cute plant pots prompted her to create a line of sustainable, handmade rattan and spun-bamboo pots.
While waiting for stock, Huang would go thrifting and find terrific vintage pieces, which she decided to sell. Instagram posts, she says, quickly began to gain “way more traction” than she had expected.
There’s no geographic divide in Canada on the appeal of vintage — it’s popular everywhere. It also often hyperlocal. In the Vancouver area, for example, writer, traveller and pop-culture junkie Waheeda Harris points to spots in her home province like @Lyricsvintage and @Stepback_ca as great sources.
Toronto-based PR maven Jennifer Thompson would love to be spending weekends sleuthing vintage furniture, accessories and art for the converted church in eastern Ontario she’s renovating (follow that adventure on her @ Silversteeplehouse Instagram account). When she can, Thompson is looking forward to visiting Finnegan’s Market in Hudson, Que., where she’ll wander happily among antiques, collectibles and handcrafts.
In lovely Lunenburg, N.S., artist Sharon Fox Cranston cites Mom’s Buy & Sell – Dad’s Ice Cream — just a few doors down from the Cranston Gallery on Lincoln Street — as a local favourite spot for secondhand and antique furniture.
Mancini thinks interest in vintage is fuelled partly by its sustainability.
“It cobbles together reusing with the ethical aspects of supporting local businesses,” she suggests. Then there’s the added charm of personality and origins. “You get a taste for the stories that come with the pieces,” says Mancini, “and how they have been passed down.”