It’s important to know which estate sales to go to, there’s a ton of them. In L.A. at least. And if you’re not careful you might end up in Northridge fighting with old guys over the 1969 Barbi Benton Playboy cover (you can find it on eBay but it’s not the same...)
You want the full experience, the deals, the vintage designer etc etc. I get it, I hear you, and I’m here to help. I’ll give you my weekly list. You’ll probably see me at a few of these, standing in the corner trying to get a clip of someone’s mug collection.
My list for this week is more stacked than usual. But first...hang on….I want to tell you about a man I met at a kiosk. Everything connects if you force it. This was one of the first times I really interacted with architecture and design.
I might want you to know I’m not a random spewing their life story on the internet. Then again, I also love going down memory lane.
Lorenzo brought you into a conversation like it was the start of a “grand adventure”. It was an F. Scott Fitzgerald type of trajectory but also, simultaneously, the stories you get when you give a truck stop clerk a few minutes of your time. Do you follow? Life exploded from his kiosk at the Westfarms mall. With his very specific fashion sense, a dedication to Gucci or maybe Gucci knockoffs, I won’t judge, and his ability to quickly and efficiently style my hair, I assumed he was gay. In the end he was just Italian.
He got me with the free hair styling demos.
He also got me with the $300 lime green hair straightener but allegedly it has a lifetime warranty.
Westfarms mall was a haven to me. It’s one of those weird things you just decide when you’re young. This mall= solved all of my problems. My hometown= hell on earth where everyone dreams of living like that hospital drama show.
I’m taking the longish way to the point but this is needed information. Not all of you had murky childhoods apparently. And not all of you have been to the oasis that is the Westfarms mall.
When you meet one kiosk worker you meet them all. My route around the mall became a reunion with old men selling phone cases and spinning a wheel to see if I could win a speedboat.
I’d sign up for things with fake emails to meet a girl’s quota. She wanted to move to Texas for a better life.
Even the weird money laundering-esque stores start to welcome you with open arms, once they see you’re connected. The random place that sold souped up bean bags would let me hang there and drink my macchiato. Extra espresso just to add some tweak to my day.
A guy who went to one of those nice prep schools asked me to hang out there once, at my mall. He was so freaked out to realize I knew the whole crew. It’s like he met my family on the first date. This was also where he told me his twin sister’s name was Quinn and asked if he could call me Fiona. I knew then and there he was a creep. And I had allowed him into my most sacred place.
When Lorenzo styled my hair, he would talk about where he was from in Italy. And it was the first time in my life that I ever heard anyone be proud of where they came from. It was hard to believe, I figured he was trying to sell me a new life like how he had got me with the hair straightener.
He kept describing art as “byzantine”, a word little Springfield Mass me did not know. I remember googling it and thinking, “Oh yeah…that’s him.” There was so much I was unaware of. How art could be so ingrained in your culture it seeps out of you. It might even somehow bring you to doing free hair demos in the dullest part of Connecticut. If I thought about it long enough it all aligned to me.
He described things with depth. Design as a pillar of your experience. What anchored my town and/or experience seemed to be the dump and..literally just the dump.
Lorenzo indulged in how light would move through spaces at a certain time of day. He stumped me with even that. His walk to get wine?? Cheese?? A big loaf of bread with paisans? was a stroll through archways and around columns. It wasn’t just about the destination, it was the feelings you got en route. I know that’s a reconfigured quote your mom tells you but it hit me then, sitting at that kiosk.
During another hair demo, I was getting a lot of these because free is free, he told me the importance of the Roman Dome. “Sick,” I said as he fried my bangs off. I kept all questions to myself, I’d google later from the safety of the Nordstrom cafe.
He brought it all to life right in front of you. I’m suddenly at the colosseum and some guy’s getting his head lobbed off. Lorenzo didn’t talk about the gnarly stuff but sometimes he rambled so much my mind would wander…But he was proud. And in an environment where culture means you’re dedicated to KFC or Popeyes, it was invigorating to hear from someone who decided to live life.
The way he described cathedrals felt nothing like the cathedral my Catholic family went to, which we called the drive thru service since it was only 30 minutes long.
“The facade,” he’d say, before the start of another long winded story about entering a building. I’m shortening this for you because, trust me there were never any bullet point conversations…and also I can’t remember every word this chatty hair stylist/alleged straight man said, but I can remember the feeling.
At 17 years old I took nothing seriously and respected no boundaries, so when our friendship evolved into texting, I put Lorenzo in a group chat with my friends. Why go it alone?
This might’ve helped him in the end to sell more hair tools. He eventually, in the group chat, announced that he would like to take me to Italy. I think I would’ve gone but I was trying to graduate high school, which wasn’t going too well but I had to see it through.
By the way, that really is his name and he might still work there so please don’t pull up on him. Unless you actually want a hair straightener, then maybe say Quinn sent you and see what happens.
Okay, ESTATE SALES. You want a deal? You want to wait in line for two hours so you can complain about it to your coworkers on Zoom? I’ve got some great niche small talk for you. Also maybe your only opportunity to step into the home of a designer shoe diffusion line owner??? Exciting and strange…
Um one more quick tangent. I usually make videos of fashion/art/architecture events going on around L.A… here are some cool ones coming up:
-Basic.Space at the Pacific Design Center (free with RSVP)
-Anna Sui Conversation and Book Signing at FIDM Museum (free with RSVP)
-An Evening with Annie Leibovitz at LACMA
Alright onto Pucci collections and sculptures that look like ___ and haunted houses.