“In a nutshell, our business started because we wanted to create the Blackest antiques store ever.”
Jannah Handy, Blk Mkt Vintage
Jannah Handy and Kiyanna Stewart’s love story is inextricably intertwined with the origin of their Brooklyn antique shop, Blk Mkt Vintage. The couple met while working on a college campus in the Student Affairs department, as a side hustle in vintage sourcing developed and bonded them together. In time, Blk Mkt Vintage was born, largely in response to filling a void. The pair saw a need for preserving and making accessible vintage objects that tell Black stories, so they began doing that passion-filled work. Now, just over a decade since the founding of Blk Mkt Vintage, they’ve published a book of the same name to document and share their mission even further.
The book’s introduction illustrates the couple’s side hustle turned passion:
“This book is the physical manifestation of our love for one another and for this history… We’ve been thinking about this book for almost a decade and knew that when the time came, we would write a book that placed us, two Black queer women from Brooklyn at the center, as a means to show how Black folks have been doing the work of archiving, collecting, and preserving for as long as we’ve existed. That our business, while doing important and fulfilling work, is the product of and response to generations of Black folks’ intimate relationship to memory work.”
Below, Handy and Stewart elaborate on their journey and drive. (Responses lightly edited for length and clarity.)
‘63 portfolio, vintage Jet magazine “Black Is Back” cover story (1967), vintage Cinemagazine issue (1928), Poor People’s March cushion (1968), antique cast-iron hot comb, vintage metal hair roller, antique photo album, vintage Patrick Kelly “Mississippi Lisa” T-shirt (1980s), BLK MKT Vintage chenille cameo patch, vintage “Black Is Beautiful” patch and stoneware saucer (1960s)
What is it about collecting and selling vintage items that excite you so much? Can you describe the feeling of finding an item that needs to come home with you?
What excites us the most is really twofold. First, for us, it’s all about the thrill of the hunt. Seeking out items that tell nuanced stories of Black history is akin to being on a treasure hunt. From Thailand to Amsterdam to Cuba, and more, no matter where we go, we are always on the hunt.
Seeking out items that tell nuanced stories of Black history is akin to being on a treasure hunt.
On the flip side, we started our business not only to collect but also to make available and accessible the items and stories we unearth. The “finding” is awesome, but the “sharing” allows our work to serve as a pebble in a pond and cause ripples that impact across wide swaths and along the time continuum.
Outside of the dopamine hit that occurs when hunting, the feeling is guttural. Sometimes there is language behind it and other times there isn’t. Having been in this industry for a decade we have come up with some questions we consider to make sure the vintage high doesn’t cloud our judgment completely:
Have we seen the item before?
Can we walk away from it?
Do we need it?
Does it serve a function?
BLK MKT Vintage’s brick-and-mortar (2023)
As Black collectors, do you feel an added sense of responsibility or pressure to make sure critical elements of your heritage and culture aren’t lost? Can you share more about how your identities inform how and why you are in this industry?
We 100% feel that our work comes from a sense of duty, a sense of preservation of our collective American history. In the Introduction of the book, we tell a story about an encounter with vintage NAACP parade float signs that reinforce the fact that we save items from ending up in the landfill.
We decided that it wasn’t up to someone else to amass the collection we wished we saw, it was up to us and Blk Mkt Vintage was born.
Sparing the dramatics and hyperbole, we often are the last chance for items before they are discarded. This sense of duty was ingrained in us at the outset of our Blk Mkt journey 10 years ago, as we started this business out of a very personal need to be “seen,” As two Black, queer women, we rarely came across artifacts or ephemera that told our story or the stories of our ancestors who shared our identities. Digging through countless estate sales, flea markets, antique stores, and auctions, we had to tirelessly search for representation of ourselves. We decided that it wasn’t up to someone else to amass the collection we wished we saw; it was up to us and Blk Mkt Vintage was born.
Vintage West African “Black Cut” barbershop sign; 2. Yellow rotary phone (1960s); 3. Vintage ceramic jar; 4. General Electric Show N Tell Phono Viewer & Record Player on stand (1960s); 5. Assorted Afro picks (1970s); 6. First edition of Ici Bon Coiffeur, by Jean-Marie Lerat (1992)
What is the community of Black vintage sellers and collectors like, and how does it feel being a part of that? How does this work, in particular, bring you all together?
One aspect of the book process that was most rewarding was the opportunity to pass the mic and chop it up with our comrades in arms— fellow Black folks in the vintage industry. From collectors who have been with us since our e-commerce days on Etsy.com in 2015, to new collaborators we’ve met in our picking travels.
The world of Black vintage is very robust and varied, a point driven home in our book in chapter X. Our conversations were not merely preaching to the choir; we were able to hear from world-renown artists who use vintage Black ephemera to inform their practice. A creator who examines the hood through the lens of mid-century architecture and design, and a collector who inherited his grandmother’s collection of 1960s Soul Publications, a Black music periodical that she started with her late husband.
There are countless points of entry in the vintage industry and just hearing how others came to the space might spark your own entry.
Jannah holding Brooklyn Civic Council banner at Brimfield Antique Flea Market (2019)
Is there a particular item in your collection that most accurately represents your mission at BLK MKT Vintage, and/or why you got into this game in the first place?
Part of our weekly routine is frequenting early morning, outdoor vintage flea markets. Having been in this field for a while, we are regulars and have become friends or friendly with the other vendors and dealers who frequent the markets. One morning an older white woman, likely in her 80s, approached Jannah and said, “You buy Black stuff, right? Come to my car.”
We’d only seen this woman at the market, never spoken or made a deal. Being that we were in public (and Jannah had a considerable size advantage), with some trepidation, Jannah followed her to her trunk and was shocked at what she saw. An original 1960s, large format photograph of Muhammad Ali (Cassisus Clay at the time of the photo) and his first wife that had noticeable singe marks around the edges. The woman explained that the photo was salvaged from the photographer’s studio that burned down. She had heard from another vendor that we buy Black antiques so she sought Jannah out. This story, photograph, and interaction all encapsulate the mission of Blk Mkt Vintage. If we were never looking, we would not have found.
Our story and approach is so much more than the physical object, it’s about the stories, the people and the serendipity that sometimes happens in a 80-year-old, white woman’s trunk!
Our story and approach is so much more than the physical object, it’s about the stories, the people and the serendipity that sometimes happens in a 80-year-old, white woman’s trunk!
Brooklyn Civic Council banner, mounted in the BLK MKT Vintage shop (2021)
How does it feel to put a book together that encapsulates your work? What aspect of the book are you proudest of?
Even though the book has been out for three months now, it’s all still very surreal. Ten years ago, when dreaming up what our vintage hobby (at the time) could grow into, we knew a book was in the plans. We wanted to canonize or memorialize our work, approach, and community that we have engaged with for over a decade. On the most basic level, we wrote this book to be found. As pickers, we have collected, sold, and seen thousands of books in hundreds of collections. In five, 20, or 100 years in the future, we want our book to be found and explored in a completely new context.
We are proudest of this book being completed— it was no easy feat! We are proud that a dream we had 10 years ago came true through hard work, grit, and perseverance. At the end of the day, Blk Mkt Vintage is a love letter to Black people and Black history, and through this book, a lot more people can share that love.
The post Blk Mkt Vintage Documents its Mission to Preserve and Share Black History in New Book appeared first on PRINT Magazine.