This Black-Owned Brooklyn Vintage Shop is a Collector’s Dream
BLK MKT Vintage is a Brooklyn, New York-based antique/vintage concept shop, specializing in collectibles, cast-offs and curiosities, which represent the richness of Black history and lived experience—from all around the world.
Curated by founders Jannah and Kiyanna Handy, who are definitely one of NYC’s coolest queer married couples, the BLK MKT Vintage collection includes found items like vintage vinyl records, books and magazines, art, housewares and decor, furniture, fashion, and other goods—all by, for, about or representing the Black diaspora. Jannah and Kiyanna’s passion for collecting these beautiful items in order to preserve the arc of Black representation, as well as its consumer identity, has taken them all around the world. Their shop is more than a shop. It’s like a living and constantly-circulating archive, or a fabulously huge and philanthropic Etsy store!
Experienced world travelers but Brooklyn-natives at heart, Kiyanna and Jannah Handy founded BLK MKT Vintage in November 2014. With over 20 years of collecting and picking experience combined, they both have an affinity for vintage wares and the narratives inherent in Black folks’ cultural production throughout history. The shop has a devoted following, including iconic filmmaker Spike Lee who is a frequent client.
One way in which they decided to preserve the riches of their business and its attendant themes was to write a book: BLK MKT Vintage: Reclaiming Objects and Curiosities That Tell Black Stories. It is out now from Hachette Book Group, and Lee furnished the women with a foreword to the book.
BLK MKT Vintage is not just a compendium of absolutely fascinating Black ephemera: it’s a passionate love story of Black culture, history, experience and creativity curated by Jannah and Kiyanna.
“Our motivation to build a collection that mirrors multifarious Black cultural expression is rooted in our love for Black people, Black culture and our own lived experiences. We approach our work as cultural historians and encourage you to join us in bringing history and antiquity into your everyday lives.”
Formerly housed at 465 Marcus Garvey Boulevard, Brooklyn, New York, the brick and mortar has permanently closed at that address and is online. However, BLK MKT Vintage’s new location in Brooklyn will be announced some time in the coming months.
Vacationer caught up with Kiyanna and Jannah recently to find out more about their passion for Black collectibles and the stories they tell, their book, and where they like to go on vacation:
Vacationer: I heard you were on vacation recently. Where are your favorite places to travel and why?
Jannah: Just recently we were in St. Thomas (part of the U.S. Virgin Islands) for a family wedding. For more than 40 years our family has been going up to Martha’s Vineyard during the summer, so the short answer is that our favorite places to travel are wherever our folks are! But for the sake of vintage we love traveling to Amsterdam, Thailand and Paris.
We judge a good picking trip by how hard it is to get our finds back home, and in each place, we have to get creative around shipping, packing and baggage weight!! We are taking our first trip to Japan in 2025 with our daughter so we are gearing up for another adventure soon.
BLK MKT Vintage is a Brooklyn, NY landmark, and we can’t wait until you open shop once more. As the hottest borough in New York, what are your must-see, must-do recommendations for folks visiting Brooklyn?
Jannah: This is a fun question, we are Brooklynites through and through! The Brooklyn Museum’s renovated American Art Wing in honor of their 200th Anniversary is a must-see. We had the pleasure of designing the lobby of the art gallery, which was reimaged through a Black, queer, feminist lens. We grew up in that same (neigbor)hood, so the sentimental favorites in the area are Aunts et Uncles for Caribbean vegan food, March Rue Dix, the best Senegalese food and wares you’ll find in NYC, and lastly, Fe Noel, a Caribbean-owned boutique specializing in luxurious resortwear.
In his foreword, Spike Lee mentions the culture of the African diaspora and how you are helping to preserve that rich legacy. How did you connect with him, what do you love about him?
Kiyanna: Spike has been a long-time customer, client and supporter of BLK MKT Vintage and when we shared our plans for a book project, he offered to contribute in any way we needed. We thought it might be real special to contextualize our own experience with Black vintage objects and cultural production with someone whose whole body of work has been an intentional celebration of Black culture, history and lived experience. Spike, like us, is a collector and a cultural worker. We thought we could speak to the nuances of building a personal collection as a Black person, while also being inspired by the rich archive of Black life, across the time continuum. And the Brooklyn connection? I mean, New Yorkers are notoriously loud and proud about their boroughs/neighborhoods—so we knew Spike would only echo the pride we have for Brooklyn and its impact on our sensibility, aesthetic and connection to memories we hold about place/space.
If you could time travel, which era or moment would you want to return to and why?
Kiyanna: I’d love to come back in the 1970s. That decade was BRIMMING with style/drip, opulence and culture. It was truly a cultural renaissance in so many areas. I think that my parents, having been raised in that era, bring me a unique sense of secondhand nostalgia for that time. Their music, their fashion, their politics, their sense of community and collective responsibility—I was raised with such a rich sense of nostalgia that it makes sense to me as a child of the late ’80s.
Where are you headed to next? I hear you will be hitting the road for your book tour.
Jannah: We have done so much in the book that we would love to see and hear from folks while we are out on the road IRL! January 2025, we are kicking off the second leg of our book tour. We currently have stops confirmed in Chicago, St. Louis and Atlanta. In February we have a really exciting event in the works, can’t wait to be able to share with you all. Please keep in touch on Instagram to get all of the BLK MKT Vintage updates. Lastly, we are reopening our brick and mortar location, bigger and better and still in Brooklyn!
