BLK MKT Vintage’s 5 Tips for Curating a Timeless Collection That Tells Your Own Story

Longevity is what I crave when I think of Blackness. I love films and TV series that show Black people and our culture in the future, reinforcing the idea that we, as a people, aren’t going anywhere, and neither is our influence. While I love seeing us represented in the future, I also want to honor our past. As a Black American who can only trace my lineage back to my maternal great-grandparents, I’m on a constant quest to pay homage to my ancestry. With limited photos, records, recipe books, and other tangible items passed down, I yearn to see not just my familial history, but also my cultural heritage reflected back at me in the home I share with my partner.

BLK MKT Vintage is a vintage and antique concept shop that specializes in Black objects, material culture, ephemera, and memorabilia that makes that want a reality. On their website and social channels, you’ll find everything from magazines released in the 1960s to antique cooking equipment, all of which can be used to put on display in your home so you can breathe another story into it. Jannah and Kiyanna Handy, the culture curators behind the brand, have worked tirelessly to help millennials like me find special pieces of the past to place in our homes. “Ten years ago, we set out to create the Blackest antique store ever—and that’s exactly what BLK MKT Vintage is,” Jannah says with pride.

Over the past decade, Kiyanna and Jannah have successfully opened their first brick-and-mortar store, created a permanent installation at the Brooklyn Museum, and participated in intentional collaborations for HBO hits like Insecure and Lovecraft Country. Amid sourcing an abundance of iconic pieces and becoming trustees at Weeksville Heritage Center, the Brooklyn natives recently made their publishing debut with BLK MKT Vintage: Reclaiming Objects and Curiosities That Tell Black Stories.

A number of recent releases have earned high praise for their documentations of Black history and future, from Jenna Wortham and Kimberly Drew’s Black Futures to Renata Cherlise’s Black Archives and Bryan Mason’s AphroChic. Each such entry in the space is a crucial, tangible representation of Black life, further solidifying our cultural staying power via their shelf lives; Jannah and Kiyanna’s book seeks to contribute to that growing canon. AD recently had the opportunity to speak with the creative couple to get their pro tips on sourcing antique treasures, learn how they turned a passion project into a profitable business, and find out what’s next for this era of BLK MKT Vintage.

Architectural Digest: BLK MKT Vintage has shown our community how to marry vintage aesthetics, Black history, and contemporary style over the past decade. What was it within you—separately and together—that inspired you both to take it from a personal passion project to a business venture?

Kiyanna Handy: I can’t say that I knew fully what was possible when we were having these conversations 11 years ago, or even earlier when we were “friends” spending all of this time together. I was really just enjoying my time with Jannah, I was enjoying my time engaging in a hobby that I had on my own. Since I was a young adult and had moved out of my parents’ house, I was doing it on my own. I would just go to thrift stores by myself, and it was really nice to have company in these spaces, be in competition with one another, and find the best thing for $20! And just make it communal.

I came into this space because of my mom. When I met Jannah, I found someone that was, yes, interested in me, but open to exploring this thing that was a hobby of mine that became a hobby of ours. In the very beginning, it was like, This would be so dope if there was a shop and a collection explicitly dedicated to exploring Black ephemera. While we saw the possibility, it wasn’t like Let’s create our 10-year business plan! It was just kind of following that intuition, the curiosity, the desire to see something different than what we were experiencing in the market.

Jannah Handy: When we first met, we had very different understandings of vintage. I was just like, It has nothing to do with me, it’s dead white guys in frames. It wasn’t until I went to Kiyanna’s on-campus apartment [at Rutgers University], thinking about how bland it [usually] is— she thrifted all her own furniture, she painted the walls, there were beautiful vintage pieces. That was the first time I saw that vintage and material culture could be a language for self-expression and also an avenue to uphold history.

I always had an interest in history—when I was younger I wanted to be Josephine Baker! I started off in investment banking; I didn’t really see how history fit into my story. It wasn’t until we met when I was like, Oh, we can love on Black people, we can collect dope vintage things, and we can make a business out of this with the person that I love? It was just a dream come true.

Do things often rotate from your home before going into someone else’s space?

Jannah: Most definitely. That’s something I really learned from Kiyanna, the idea of cycling your decor. I always thought once you paint the walls or put the picture up it has to stay. But the idea of being open to change, or interrogating pieces to see if they operate or give you joy in the same way.

What does your sourcing process look like?

Jannah: It really is, “Can I see a certain kind of value in it? Can I understand how somebody else may value this?” It’s [also] what looks cool, “Am I drawn to that thing?” That’s where it starts.

Kiyanna: It depends on what we’re sourcing for! If we’re sourcing for an interior project, or some kind of activation, or an event—there is a mood board, a vision board, a whole kind of deck that is used to anchor. We’re sourcing according to that vision. If we’re just out at a market and we have a free Saturday morning and we’re just going together, we’re just looking for the things that jump out at us.

With particularly treasured items, is it hard to actually live with them without being too precious about them?

Jannah: To a certain extent, living with them is showing that you’re not too precious about them. One camera I have is my grandmother’s camera, and that’s on the shelf right behind us that I can look at every single day. The value of being able to experience it and in a moment it can take me to the memory of them and that’s why it’s out. In the book, we write a whole section about value and what are the types of value to honor. In a capitalist world, it is about monetary value, but there are so many other forms of value that we can tap into that can help us reimagine the ways we engage with the materials around us.

Kiyanna: There is something really beautiful about some of the items that we deem most precious are also the most visible and most accessible items in our homes at the same time. You get to enjoy and interact with them more because they are front and center in the space. There’s a chapter in the book called “The Vault,” it’s a chapter that focuses deeply on the items from our private collection. Many of the items are on our bookshelf. They are not in a vault, they are items that we use and things we have worn because that’s our relationship to our items.

How do you decide which items to keep for yourselves in your own space versus those to sell at the store?

Kiyanna: It’s so hard! It really hasn’t become easier. As we’ve cultivated a network and come across so much material, it doesn’t get easier to say no. If anything, it becomes easier to assess different usages for things. Now we can rent things out because we have prop rental, or hold onto things for interior clients but at the beginning, we were bursting at the seams of our two-bedroom apartment. We do a lot of overcommunicating about the things we like and that we’re really connected to. It’s show and tell every day. We decide from there what’s going to be sold, what will go to a client of ours, or go for a specific project we’re working on.

Jannah: We have two very different relationships to things. We’re grateful that we now have so many different arms of the business that sometimes, we don’t have to be forced to make a decision. We’ll empty the car and have something sitting in our foyer, and we’re like “Huh, that actually looks kinda good there. I think I’ll keep it!” We get to shop our own collection, which is dope.

It can be really difficult to figure out how to honor your heritage in your home without it feeling like you’re playing into a theme of sorts. Do you have any tips on how to incorporate these items into your space while still making it not like a museum where you can't touch anything?

Kiyanna: I think about this often, because everyone really is different. Generally, we are folks who like to live amongst our things. I think about that with respect to Black folks, living amongst and really enjoying the objects that we live with. They are tied to our identities, our communities, our families.

Jannah: Specifically speaking on heritage, so much of our story is not just Blackness. I have a big collection of vintage cameras, and someone once asked “Oh, how is this camera Black?” It doesn’t have to be a raced object. We encourage folks to explore what interests you. Did you used to do ballet? Put the ballet slippers on your collage wall. That idea of showing the totality of who you are helps to show your heritage.

On the subject of museums, as Brooklyn natives, how does it feel to have a permanent installation at the Brooklyn Museum?

Kiyanna: It feels really, really special. When we announced it we felt really held by the community. We both grew up about five minutes from the museum and have spent a lot of formative years both inside that institution, around that institution, you know—that’s our neighborhood. We recognize the importance of cultural institutions and art institutions. This installation in particular was really special because we centered it around the Black home. Literally, our [childhood] homes are right there. It’s an opportunity to bring a Black home into the museum space, and to do it for an exhibit that was about American art. Not Black American art or Black interiors—not in a more specific way, but this very general American art topic. There were some connections there that were validated by folks at the institution that just felt really great and I feel really proud.

Jannah: It felt like a full-circle moment. Also, seeing the growth of the institution—the idea that an institution like the Brooklyn Museum would invest in a space to make it expressly Black, that was a big blessing in this process. That we were able to support other Black folks at the museum who wanted this to happen, but also that they saw fit to choose us to help it come to fruition.

You stated that your goal with the book is to “explore Black material culture in contemporary life.” When people flip through these pages in the years to come, how do you see it being a part of conversations about identity and heritage?

Jannah: A question that was posed to us before was “Why is a book important for the BLK MKT story?” This is making me think about it, in that, 50 years from now, 100 years from now—we want this book to be found. We want this book to be a testament that this work, our history, and our stories were important enough for us to put in the work to make this book.

We want to be able to say to Black folks past, present, and future, that you were important in the work that we do and the story that we’re trying to craft. We want folks to think more across the time continuum—what are you doing now that helps honor your past but prepares you for the future? How are you planning for the future that helps ground you now? We have the chance to look at our lives in such a different way, and to be unconventional but also intentional about all the ways that we center Blackness and how that can be a liberating force.

Kiyanna: I really want folks who find this book in a few years to recognize that we are not trying to make a sweeping blanket statement about how Black folks in this moment engage in archiving and collecting. We are two Black, queer, LGBTQIA-identified folks, from Brooklyn (surprised we only said that once), married, very much so in love, and have built a life that is dedicated to this work.

There is something really beautiful—and important—about documenting to say, this is our story. And when you turn to chapters six or seven, you’ll meet so many others who are also engaged in this work. Their relationships to their objects are immortalized and told in this time capsule as well. This book is representing us, in this moment, and documenting the last 10 years. An anchoring foundation of who we are and who we have been, so if you open it up in the future, you will understand how material has looked for us and could look for you.