Meet Patrice & Lori

Hello, Fellow Pickers!

Patrice and Lori at Topanga Vintage Market

Lori and I met when our sons were in kindergarten in Topanga. We were two single moms who wanted to earn a living and still have time for our kids, and we both loved vintage. At first we decided to try selling at the famous Long Beach Antique Flea Market. It was a long drive and a loooooong day.

We researched other local flea markets where vintage and antiques were sold, like Pasadena City College (sold out!) or Pasadena’s giant Rose Bowl Flea Market (too big.) We looked north to the Ventura antique markets and checked out the Wednesday flea (not quite vintage enough) or the RG Canning Ventura Flea Market (too infrequent and too far….)

Then the light bulb went off! The Valley needs its own flea market. Right? So with our passion for old things and art, and Lori’s entrepreneurial background and my marketing and event planning skills, everything came together and Topanga Vintage Market was born.

The show opened in April 2012 at the Westfield Promenade Mall (perfect for a Valley flea, right?)
We were on the corner of Topanga & Oxnard in Woodland Hills. Also Perfect! It was an instant hit.
Such a hit that we soon outgrew the mall’s parking lot and moved to nearby Pierce College, where TVM has thrived ever since.

There are so many great vintage and antique sellers in Los Angeles, supported by so many great shows, and now us (and you)! We chose the 4th Sunday of each month as our show date because we wanted to be invite the vendors from PCC (1st Sunday), RB (2nd Sunday) and LB (3rd Sunday. These are LA’s top 3 for vintage. And it worked!
We have many well known LA dealers.
Plus we have our own “Topanga only” vendors and creatives to keep the show unique and fresh every month.

Check out our LA Flea Calendar to keep track of it all.

We love hosting hundreds of micro-businesses at every show, and we love the happy grins of the customers with their flea market finds.

And we’ve made over a quarter million dollars for Pierce.
We are so happy and grateful that things have worked out so well.

The market features about 200 vintage vendors, and about 3 dozen local creatives. With food trucks and live entertainment at every show, shoppers of all ages can enjoy a unique block party atmosphere the 4th Sunday of every month.

It’s a treasure hunt full of thousands of objects! Our job is to make sure the market is full of high quality vintage and antique dealers with a variety of goods, from jewelry and fashion to furniture, automobilia, ephemera and horror movie props.

That’s what makes a good flea – classic antiques, vintage pyrex, rock’n’roll T-shirts & vinyl, and on trend mid-century masterworks, mixed with loads of the unexpected. Lori and I still find new dealers and we still invite them to join Topanga Vintage Market, but nowadays we mainly get referrals from our regulars, which is the greatest compliment.

When someone calls and says “I met Mary at PCC flea market and she said I should sell at your show,” I know we’re doing a good job.

We are known as the fun and laid back flea. It’s partly due to size – we are small but mighty! But it’s also something Lori and I try to achieve in little ways at the show. We have funny sticker tickets that say things like “Hoarder With Order” or “Vintage Vixen” (over 150 different ones!), and we run contests like the “instavintage” photo contest.

But the thing that sets us apart, and that we hear often, is that we’re nice. Yup.
Vendors compliment us on taking care to get them the spot they need. Customers tell us “the vendors are really nice here.” The funnest thing about running the show is the camaraderie of the flea marketeers. So when we hear Topanga Vintage Market is nice, that’s what makes us the proudest.

Well, at least until House Beautiful named us “the absolute coolest flea market in California!”

Thanks for reading. See you on the 4th Sunday! Patrice