Old But Gold
Above Images credited to Simon Whitmore for FW Media/Style Your Modern Vintage Home
Johanna Mangel interviews
two vintage furniture traders
to see what it takes to make
it in the business
If you ask us, having a wardrobe full of pre-loved
treasures qualifies you as retro royalty. However, if
you really want to go all the way, you need to give that
vintage touch to your home too. Whether it’s a postWW2 coffee table or an old rocking chair, these pieces
are more than just objects to fill your house with. Vintage
furniture has a story and let’s be honest, it looks pretty
amazing too.
Since 2010, Kate and Adam Beavis have been running
Your Vintage Life, an online vintage shop that sells
fashion, furniture and homewares. The furniture they
sell, is mainly from the 1950s to the 1970s, but they do
occasionally find beautiful pieces from as early as the
1930s.Kate is also an author, having her first book Style
Your Modern Vintage Home, published in 2013. ‘It is a
guide to buying, styling and restoring vintage and takes
the reader through from the 1920s to the early 1990s,’
she explains.
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Their love for decades past began with charity clothes
shopping, back in the good old early 90s when you
could pick up an original Fred Perry polo shirt for only
20p! A passion for homewares came later. ‘When we
met our tastes were quite different. Kate’s style was very
girly, mixed with a bit of 1950s and modern furniture
from Heals and Habitat,’ says Adam. ‘Adam loved and
still loves the late 1960s design with teak, atomic lights
and retro prints adorning his walls. Add in his love for
classic cars, bikes and even lawn mowers means we
truly live the vintage life,’ says Kate.
Another passionate furniture retailer, Hugo Sabin, got
into vintage pieces after he inherited his grandmother’s
old homeware. At first he didn’t know what to do with it.
‘I definitely didn’t want to sell them and I couldn’t afford
to keep them in storage so there was only one solution
– upcycling, and that’s what I did,’ he says. After some
encouragement from friends and family, he came to
realise the commercial potential his pieces had and in
January 2014 set up an upcycled vintage furniture store
called Pipoca.
It is not always easy to find the perfect stock. ‘This time
consuming process includes visiting sales, charity
shops and country events as well as local advertising,’
says Hugo. For Kate and Adam, who have been in the
game slightly longer than Pipoca, it is a little V6