From a designer always frantically shopping for furniture and interiors, in the city I grew up in.
A lot of my interior design pieces are sourced from antique or vintage places, and with the way the world works now—most of that is online. However, given the chance I would 100% prefer to go hunting IRL.
As a caveat; I don’t usually shop thrift stores for our interior design projects—I have a vague philosophy (don’t hold me to it though: it’s something brewing rather than a thesis in itself) that those things should be left to people that need them and besides, the amount of time that searching through piles and piles of items at an hourly charge out rate means a simple chair from a Salvation Army, installed in my projects, would actually cost more than one from a curated antique store.
However: antique and vintage stores have already done the hard work for us all, digging through estate sales and questionable piles of stained furniture to find the treasures. An extremely valuable middle man. Most of my projects take place in NYC, where the vintage and antique landscape is changing rapidly (RIP the Chelsea Antiques Building), and in Auckland, the city I grew up in and to much relief, still has some of my favourites firmly standing. Auckland's vintage and antique scene is quieter than you'd expect for a city this size, but it rewards the patient.
Here's where I actually hunt for furniture, salvage, and decor for my interior design work.
Flotsam & Jetsam
212 Richmond Rd (not open every day —check hours before you go!)
These guys have recently moved into a space that was historically a dairy, then for decades a notorious party flat on Richmond Road—ask anyone who grew up in the city, and they will have a story about a wild night they had in this space. Even my mother, who is now in her 60s, laughed and shook her head and said “never mind,” when I just asked if she’d been there during university. It was a rite of passage, now a home to a beautiful collection of antique bits and pieces.
Tends toward smaller finds — lighting, ceramics, fun little objects — but strong for the kinds of things that make a room feel like it was assembled over time rather than ordered in an afternoon. Their wicker basket selection is legendary. The selection changes regularly.
Just Plane Interesting Antiques and Collectables
100 Parrs Cross Road, Oratia
This one is not for the faint hearted—in part, because its a fair drive from the city, but also because it has a quirky sense of humour, which you may or may not appreciate when trying to furnish your home. I am the former, and I will always wait for the parking spot marked for “Elvis Presley Fans” and marvel at the insane prop collection tacked to the roof. Just Plane Interesting is a shop that feels like a museum.
There are two buildings, across the road from each other, and between them more than 30 years of accumulated stock — antique furniture, art, lighting, props, curiosities. Their outdoor and garden selection is unique to this list. For a designer, the lighting is the reason to go. Antique and Art Deco lighting that would cost considerably more sourced from specialty dealers elsewhere tends to surface here, in context, in a setting that makes it easier to see what you're actually looking at. Furniture likewise — the range skews more eclectic than curated, but there are pieces worth finding if you go with patience rather than a brief.
Antique Alley
240 Dominion Road, Mount Eden
At the wise age of 16, I convinced my boyfriend at the time to buy me a beautiful antique amethyst necklace from this shop, that I promptly lost. A year later, after having my heart equally broken by the boy and the loss of the necklace, I bought a 1960’s wallet here and once home found a gold necklace inside—a little bit of karma from the antique Gods?
One of Auckland's longest-running antique stores, now in its second generation under Gareth and Tarin Brettell. The scope here is broad and the walls are absolutely packed—silverware, crockery, furniture, collectibles—and much of the stock comes from deceased estates, which means it tends to have genuine provenance rather than the vague "vintage-inspired" provenance of somewhere that's just reselling op-shop items. Good for decorative pieces, interesting for furniture and antique frames if you're prepared to look properly.
Vitrine
5 McDonald Street, Morningside
Everything I have bought from these guys has been an absolute winner. I hesitate to even share this one, because this is one of my secret weapons. Vitrine is the benchmark, even internationally.
A roughly 700-square-metre warehouse in Morningside stocked with European antiques and vintage furniture — mostly French-sourced, spanning many eras — with new containers arriving regularly and a workshop in Kingsland doing restoration work in the background. The stock is genuinely varied: one visit might turn up a pair of seagrass armchairs, the next a set of Brutalist stools or an ornate glass pendant that belongs in a much more serious room than you currently own. Owners Amanda and Julien Thery buy based on what they're drawn to, not what's trending.
Mr Bigglesworthy/Good Form
86 Newton Road, Eden Terrace
I have been shopping from these guys since they were a Trademe Store. Mr Bigglesworthy was founded in 2011 by Dan and Emma Eagle, and Good Form is their newer venture operating under the same roof — the Mr Bigglesworthy collection is showcased in the Good Form gallery. The stock is carefully edited — this is not a rummage situation — and the quality is consistent. Prices reflect that, but so does the selection. If you're looking for an authentic Eames, a Hans Wegner, or something in that bracket, this is the most reliable starting point in Auckland. Don't go expecting a bargain. Do go expecting the real thing.
Yvonne sanders antiques
474 Manukau Road, Epsom
There are antique stores and there are institutions. Yvonne Sanders, trading in Epsom for over five decades, is the latter. She has literally written the book on antiques in New Zealand. The specialisation is French and English antiques — furniture, chandeliers, architectural pieces — sourced internationally and brought to a New Zealand market that has largely Yvonne to thank for access to this category at all. If you are looking for a genuine French chandelier, this is the most serious starting point in Auckland. If you are looking for quality European furniture with real provenance, same answer.
The prices are not low, and they shouldn't be. What you're paying for is expertise, condition, and the kind of sourcing relationship that takes decades to build. Yvonne is still very much present in the business, and her knowledge of individual pieces is the kind you don't find in a shop that changes hands every few years. Worth knowing: architectural antiques have a separate location in Three Kings.
junk and disorderly
86 Newton Road, Eden Terrace
The name is honest. These guys have moved all around Auckland, and this is my favourite location so far. Come during Central Flea on the weekend—Auckland’s giant flea market, rivalling the Rose Bowl in LA, housed on their doorstep. This is a warehouse-scale store with no particular sense of organisation and a lot of potential buried inside it. It rewards the kind of shopper who can see past the context — who can look at a chair stacked sideways against a wall and understand what it might be. The range runs from genuinely interesting vintage finds to things that are simply old, and part of the skill is knowing the difference. It's not for everyone, but if you're prepared to spend time, it tends to deliver.
A final note: on how to shop vintage and antiques well
A lot of people approach vintage furniture the way they approach a regular furniture store — with a specific brief, a set of measurements, and the expectation of finding exactly what they need. This almost never works.
The better approach is to visit regularly without a strong agenda, to develop an eye for quality and proportion over time, and to buy something when it's right rather than when it's needed. The pieces that make a room memorable are rarely the ones that were purchased to specification. They're the ones that arrived first and everything else was arranged around them. This skill does take a lot of time to finesse—I have been doing this for decades, but it is really the only way you’re going to have a space that is layered, textural, and doesn’t look like you bought out a catalog and called it a day.
If you’d like an experienced eye and someone to guide you through it all, Studio Sio is an interior design studio working between Auckland and New York City, designing all over the world. We work on residential, hospitality, and retail interiors — and yes, we source vintage and antiques. If you'd like help finding and integrating pieces into your home, get in touch.