Outfit your Airbnb like a pro at the Santa Monica Antique and Vintage Market 

Santa Monica Flea Market 

By Adam Tschorn

Not as daunting as the Rose Bowl Flea Market, not as elbow-to-elbow as the Melrose Trading Post, this first and fourth Sunday of the month event had been a go-to for locals and design professionals alike for more than two decades. (On a recent visit I spotted French fashion designer Isabel Marant shopping Aiyia, a zero-waste label that upcycles quilt scraps into one-of-a-kind jackets and adds artful appliques to sweatpants and sweatshirts).

Thanks to the ample free parking and dog-friendly policy, it’s worth the $5 price of admission alone to spend the day (it opens at 7 a.m. and closes at 3 p.m.) wandering the tented parking lot stalls marveling at truly eclectic mix of clothes, antiques, home furnishings and glassware that all feel a a notch above the regular mix of flea market merch. 

If you’re furnishing a guest house, ADU or Airbnb, you’re unlikely to leave without some fun piece of furniture (a Pedro Friedeberg hand chair, perhaps, Mid-century Modern side table or an antique bureau with drawer pulls as ornate as western-wear belt buckles), conversation-starting decor (Pink’s Hotdog sign, a lamp made out of recycled coral, a dreamcatcher, a decorative geode the size of a fire hydrant or a tiki-bar’s-worth of taxidermied pufferfish) or wall art (framed paintings of angry-looking rabbits, an embroidered version of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” or a caped Jack Black leaping about in a “Nacho Libre” movie poster).

Likewise if you’re looking for eye-catching clothes or unique accessory. A recent spin through the market turned up, in no particular order, denim trucker jackets reworked with olive drab flight-jacket arms; brightly beaded, disco-worthy tops; white silk varsity jackets emblazoned with Wonder Woman’s comic-book likeness, fluffy white handbags that fall somewhere between small cumulus cloud and cartoon sheep. 

 

santamonicaantiquemarket.com

Interim Open Space

3223 Donald Douglas Loop S.

Santa Monica 90405

Info@FleaMarketsLA.com

310.909.9001