New York Magazine - USA (2020-02-17)

.... the look book goes to the hebrew ho..................................................
....................................... e underground gourmet on golden diner....

➸ jannah handy and kiyanna stewart began

going to thrift stores together in 2014 while both were at

Rutgers University. “Kiyanna grew up thrifting. So when

we started dating, it’s something I’d do to spend time

with her,” says Handy. Their pastime had them combing

regional estate sales and flea markets, then selling what

they found on Etsy; later, they created a website. “We

realized that older white men run this industry. The arti-

facts we’d see in these places did not represent us or our

hi t pled with how

m lack. “We’d find

some cool industrial pieces and a collection of Jet maga-

zines, and we’d put both up for sale,” Stewart says. “Even-

tually, we made a decision to focus on black ephemera.”

The choice stemmed from a desire to both normalize

black representation in antiques stores and change the

value of black antiquities. “I’ve seen boxes of black objects

in the dumpster at auction houses,” says Handy. A couple

of months ago, the pair opened Blk Mkt, a 900-square-

foot store (465 Marcus Garvey Blvd.) in Bed-Stuy burst-

ing with trinkets and art and other vintage pieces you

won’t find anywhere else—from an original FBI wanted

poster for Angela Davis to ’70s Afro picks (which Handy

was surprised to find, she says, at an antiques store “in a

very white town in South Jersey”). The physical space,

they say, has allowed a whole new type of customer to

engage with their wares. “Last week, I was in the shop,

and these two 10-year-old black girls came in. If we’d just

had some mid-century couches in the window, they

probably would have kept walking.”

The

BestNew

Storein

Brooklyn

PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY OF BLK MKT VINTAGE

opening:

blk mkt