Pippin Home

My favourite shop in New York is Pippin Vintage. It has regular deliveries, and I have never failed to buy something from there on each trip. Most of their stock is bought at auctions in upstate New York.

This is one of two identical milk glass lamps I bought there in the summer. Pretty, right? A total result, as far as I am concerned (even though I am actually running out of lamp space. I have a lack of basics; cutlery, bowls, decent towels - but lamps, well, there is an overabundance. There are only so many one flat can accommodate.)

There are two shops, next door to each other. The first is Pippin Home.

Next door is Pippin Jewellery, a fabulous treasure trove of silk scarves, tiny 1940s hats with net, Bakelite and Lucite jewellery, and lots more. I bought an Italian silk scarf here.

The trick with Pippin is to go there often, and buy something straight away if you like it. None of this dawdling, as I did with the picture below. In the summer, I went back to look at it every day for three days, wondering did I really like it, or was it just that it was in a vintage shop and was reasonably priced? Does anyone else ever have those feelings? Still, as it turns out, I did like it, but when I went to get it, it was gone. Whoever has it now can not possibly love it as much as I would have.

On my first trip to Pippin Home a few weeks ago, I was really surprised that there was nothing I wanted to buy. Not a total disaster, I decided, in these credit crunched days, when the exchange rate is dire (for me), and I don't have a job.

But a week later, half an hour before I was due to leave to go to the airport, I decided to fit in a last-minute mercy dash to Pippin.

And guess what? There was a picture with my name on it, or rather my credit card details on it, which I quickly whipped out without thinking through the consequences. The owner told me that he had had two smaller pictures by the same artist earlier in the week. I'm sure I would have loved them, and I could have avoided the panic which accompanies lugging a large picture to the airport, not totally convinced it will fit through the scanning machines. (It did, only just.)

The conclusion; go to Pippin if you are in New York, with intent, and often. I also missed out on another two scarves I had seen on the first visit to the jewellery store, but had procrastinated about. I haven't quite unwrapped my purchases yet, but I will post a photo here when I do.