“What are those?” my visitors say, looking up at the unusual utensils displayed on the high, narrow shelf circling my kitchen. They look like Afro picks or pasta tools with clay-colored handles. I usually give them a moment to guess. “How many do you have?” they ask. “And when did you start collecting?”

This unexpected sight stirs curiosity. “They’re angel food cake cutters,” I say, “with Bakelite handles. It was the trendy dessert back in the ’30s and ’40s, too sticky to cut with a knife, so a tool was designed specifically. Every kitchen in America had one and now no one uses them, so they turn up for pretty cheap.”

And now we’re off.

Vintage collections—and even the occasional piece here and there—are built-in conversation starters. It’s not why people collect things, but it’s a pleasant side effect that helps to ease New Surroundings Anxiety. With just one home decor choice, we’ve launched a conversation: culinary trends, favorite cakes, industrial product design, even the historical origins of plastic. One could say retro items bring people closer together. OK, maybe that’s a stretch. But … maybe not.

Retro style was once reserved for oddballs, artsy-fartsies, and those willing to make do with bygone treasures unearthed at garage sales and flea markets. But we are currently in a Thrift Renaissance for the foreseeable future and “buying pre-owned” is undeniably hot amongst all genders and across generations. So hot that “secondhand” has impacted the global marketplace. From Vogue to the BBC and the Wall Street Journal, media outlets reliably cover the secondary market’s boom and its influence on our wardrobes and homes.

There are obvious reasons why this trend has reached the mainstream. Chief among them is sustainability awareness shared on social media (including the rise of farm-to-table restaurants, vegan interior design, and environmentally responsible architecture). Also, Covid-era economic hardships—particularly supply chain issues, rising inflation, and tariffs—have made newness less attainable.

But what intrigues me are the thrifting zeitgeist’s tertiary subtleties. Rough patches in our lives yield a yearning for coziness, and vintage helps soothe the frazzled soul.

“It signals the virtues we no longer have time for,” says Elyse Alfandre, an antiques dealer for over 25 years with two Valley Vintage store locations in North Jersey. “We live in the present, plan for the future, but mustn’t forget the past. We were formed by those values and designs.”

So, how do we welcome that vintage sensibility into our home decor without upsetting the balance of our modern kitchen?

An Emotional Connection

Believe it or not, it starts with raw emotion. We can’t help but attach feelings to places, traditions, small moments in time, trips we’ve taken, or people we’ve loved—even the fantasy of simpler times. The kitchen is where everyone ends up at parties. It’s at the very heart of human relationships. Dotting our kitchen landscape with mementos of what we hold dear creates personal warmth, positive feedback loops, little bumps of serotonin.

Remember that clay coil ashtray you made in third grade? It would make an excellent, if lopsided, spoon rest. And those coasters you pocketed on that pub-crawl during your college semester abroad in Edinburgh? You could frame those and hang them over the bar. Your mother probably has tablecloths she’s ready to part with–that stained one would make adorable café curtains. Grab that wooden-handled melon baller from your great-aunt’s kitchen drawer and set it on the windowsill over your sink. I dare you to not think of her when you do dishes. Just try not to smell her yummy cornbread.

Not all of these curious finds need be personal; oftentimes things simply speak to us. Or shout! The hunt for a particular item or “No, thanks, just browsing” can turn a rainy day into a time-warp adventure. Myriad brick-and-mortar resale shops have cropped up in recent years. And Facebook marketplace, eBay, and local buy-nothing/swap sites have turned Grandma’s kitchen into a cash cow. Now you can simply click around ’til something sparks joy. If it makes you giggle, that’s a good sign.

Pinterest offers endless inspiration from that decade you wish you’d been born into or the decor version of armchair travel. Keep your cloves in an antique Moroccan tin or use an old butter bell from Bavaria. My collection of souvenir spoons represents not the places I’ve seen, but the places I someday hope to visit. Searching your favorite foods plus the words vintage ads, ceramics, or souvenirs will feed those obsessions you’re inexplicably drawn to—yes, I’m talking to you over there, with the thing for lobster bibs, and we who adore root beer floats. Framed pages from an old Betty Crocker cookbook make for charming kitchen art. Dishtowels and potholders do, too. I’ve a friend who framed a vintage apron in a shadow box—anything can be framed, really.

A Kitchen in Color

For an authentic deep dive, research kitchen color trends throughout the decades, though they’re not for the beige-hearted. Current interior designers have had a stronghold on popular palettes that tend toward whites and greys. As antiques dealer Barry Berg wisely confides, “It takes bravery to resurrect the past.”

Prior to the mid-1990s, bright color was splashed everywhere, in every room—especially ’60s kitchens. In the ’30s, aqua and cantaloupe were all the rage. During the ’70s it was avocado green and burnt orange. Such a daring degree of bravery requires commitment few have, and that’s OK! There’s room for everyone’s comfort level.

I painted my kitchen walls celery green with polka dots in melon and buttery yellow—very 1930s. The floor is old-school, checkered light-and-dark sage linoleum, the kind popular in the ’40s, embedded with little flecks. My counters are aqua formica with a ’50s pattern of overlapping boomerangs I was shocked to find at Home Depot. (Adding the word retro to any search will yield hours of procrastination as you spy countertops with names like Xanadu Blue Bamboo.) I even drove to a warehouse in Brooklyn for the aluminum counter trim found in fabulous ’50s diners.

There’s no method to my madness, and all decades are welcome—no single aesthetic defines my taste. My cupboards are chock full of Pyrex bowls from the ’60s and Archie Comics juice glasses from the ’70s. Depression glass and milk glass, aluminum measuring spoons and enamel pots—everyone co-mingles nicely. In the breakfast nook, I’ve hung food-themed art, plus art depicting scenes of domesticity. Bird art hangs near the windows. A tin container stamped “grease” holds pencils and pens. Flour and sugar tins hold flour and, well, sugar. I only have a few salt & pepper shakers because that corner of collecting belongs strictly to my mother.

Yard-by-Yard: The Joy of the Hunt

Certainly, some of my penchant for colorful, olden-times-ware can be explained away by my yard-sale-stopping childhood. My parents mixed wild ’60s wallpaper with turn-of-the-century Westlake dressers, and installed a disco mirror ball in our dining room. During “cleanup week” we cruised the curbs around town in our family station wagon. When Mom told Dad to pull over, he always did.

Once home, Dad fixed broken chairs down in his workshop and Mom reupholstered them with groovy fabrics. They were unabashedly handy and upcycled before there was a word for it. Neither shied away from color. Plus, they were the children of Depression-era parents, which meant if you could mend, repaint, or glue it, you did—older stuff was made better and worth fixing. My mother’s mother owned an antiques shop, and my artist father grew up visiting art museums with his mother in Manhattan. It’s no wonder our household respected bygone-era design. Whether the inset zipper and hand-sewn hem of a pre-owned taffeta ballgown, or the soigné shape of a deco ceramic vase, beauty and talent were spoken of reverently at home as were the artists whose craft was seemingly magic.

After college, I followed my mother into volunteering for the semi-annual VNA (now AVN) Rummage Sale in Far Hills. There was no “Vintage Department” in 1993, so I started one with two other volunteers and we ran it together for 14 years. Whereas, you could say my undergraduate degree in secondhand was hard-won at the 26^th Street Flea Market and thrift shops of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, that mammoth New Jersey rummage sale has served as my graduate degree, twice a year, for 33 years. I’ve enriched my education by crowd-sourcing the 400+ seasoned volunteers’ expertise in everything we sell from toys and lamps to records and furniture. Long before we could look things up on our phones, we subscribed to collector’s magazines and talked to one another. I could walk into the kitchen department and hold up a gilhoolie, asking, “What’s this?” and someone always knew.

“People buy for their history. They’re nostalgic for their childhoods,” says Mark Burdett, of Grey Gardens (MCM antiques) and chief researcher in the BonTon Department at “Rummage.” He hears shoppers say, over and over, “Oh, look! My mother had that.” He thinks nostalgia drives sales more than anything. When Mark was 16, he began collecting McCoy vases. Then Tom & Jerry juice jars, then cookbooks. “Some you read, some you cook with, some you just laugh at because the recipes are so preposterous.” He loves his old ice cream scoop and “yellow ware” mixing bowls because “They’re made better. They’re built sturdier.” We’ve been dismayed by the downslide of manufacturing and have a collective yearning overall for better quality. “Vintage adds character and style,” says Mark, “from those halcyon days before planned obsolescence.”

Always Room for One More

I never tire of hearing about collectors’ origin stories and where they think their initial urges came from. Secretly, we know the underlying reason is because we have a tiny screw loose. Something catches our eye, takes hold, and we’re done for. Searching for treasure is a hunt and an ancient thrill—it’s at the nexus of serendipity and patience. We are the proud descendants of hyper-vigilant gatherers, just as germane to the survival of the tribe. Do we need a cabinet full of pastel KitchenAid mixers? We do not. But we’ve made space, and we like them.

When people give me an angel food cake cutter as a gift, it warms my cockles every time. I hop up on a step stool and inch them over—I can always make room for more. As I add it to the shelf, I imagine my friend, out in the wild, spying one and thinking of me. It’s an unintended bonus that keeps me connected. See? Vintage really does bring us together. □

VINTAGE SHOPPING & INSPIRATION

IN-PERSON SHOPPING:

• Antique Emporium, Asbury Park. Antique Center of Redbank. redbankantique.com
• Antiques Row, 17-mile stretch along Rt. 206 between Byram & Newton
• Cape May Antique Center, Cape May. facebook.com/capemayantique
• Columbus Farmers Market (& Outdoor Flea), Columbus. columbusfarmersmarket.com
• Golden Nugget Flea Market, Lambertville. gnflea.com
• Habitat for Humanity ReStores, various locations
• The Lafayette Mill Antiques Center, Lafayette. millantiques.com
• Junke & Treasures, Wildwood. wildwoodsnj.com/shopping/junke-treasures
• Rascal Salvage Vintage, High Bridge. rascalsalvagevintage.com
• Valley Vintage, West Orange and Maplewood. valleyvintage168.com

SEASONAL EVENTS:

• Atlantic Visiting Nurse (AVN) Rummage Sale
  Spring 2026: F–Su, May 1–3
  Fall 2026: F–Su, Oct. 2–4
  Hours: Fr & Sa 9:30am–3:30pm, Sun 12:30–3:30pm
  Far Hills Fairground, 1 Peapack Road, Far Hills
  facebook.com/AVNrummagesale
• Police Athletic League (PAL) Antiques & Collectibles Show
  First Sunday of every month, Oct.–April
  (Note: April show to be held on April 12)., 9am–2:30pm
  1 PAL Drive, Wayne. waynepal.org

ACTUAL PRINTED/OLD-SCHOOL STORE MAP:

• Sunday Driver Directory—manually updated map of brick-and-mortar antiques/vintage sellers in NJ. sundaydriver.com

CURATED, HIGHER-END SHOPS:

• Town Home & Garden, Ridgewood. facebook.com/townhg
• Salvage Style (Maplewood Mercantile), Maplewood. salvagestylenj.com
• GreatHouse, Summit. greathousenj.com
• TreeHouse Antiques, Cape May. facebook.com/treehouseantiquescapemay

ONLINE SHOPPING SOURCES:

• Find estate sales listed by region: estatesales.net
• Find local auction listings: auctionninja.com
• Live online auctions: liveauctioneers.com
• Plus Facebook Marketplace and your local swap/“buy nothing” groups

VINTAGE & SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION:

• Clotheshorse with Amanda Lee McCarty Podcast. @clotheshorsepodcast
• Pre-Loved” by Emily Stochl on Substack. @emilymstochl
• Brynn Smith-Jenkins, FB and YouTube. @brynnsmithjenkins

SUSTAINABLY RESPONSIBLE KITCHEN DESIGN:

• Walden Interiors (luxury vegan interior design), Millburn– walden-interiors.com

INCREDIBLE VINTAGE MADNESS HOME/MUSEUM:

• Seriously, you’ll have the most incredible experience touring Ricky Boscarino’s wild vintage and wacky art museum in his actual home, which showcases his multi-hyphenate artwork and decades-long global collecting odyssey in every inch of his four-story home. Tickets cost $20 May-Oct., Luna Parc, Sandyston: lunaparc.com

OUTSTANDING KITCHEN ART:

• Bill Miller (Salvaged kitchen linoleum tile collages): billmillerart.com
• Wendy Prather Burwell (Still-life oil paintings of vegetables): wendypratherburwell.com
• Nan Ring (Abstract acrylic paintings of old-school domesticity): nanringstudio.com

SOCIAL MEDIA/ONLINE COMMUNITIES:

• @retrohauls—share your vintage finds.
• @retrorecipeskitchen—Robert Hicks cooks up old-time favorite recipes.
• @jessiejolles–Obsessive thrift er Jesse Jolles’s one-minute videos will make you nod your head as you laugh out loud.