Before there is a candle, there is the hunt.
It begins with an early alarm, comfortable shoes, cash tucked into a pocket, and the delicious certainty that somewhere—beneath a table, inside a cardboard box, or nearly hidden behind a stack of old plates—the perfect silver vessel is waiting.
We search everywhere.
France
In Paris, Saturday and Sunday mornings may find us at the Marché aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves, along Avenue Marc Sangnier in the 14th arrondissement. It opens at 7:00 in the morning and begins disappearing by 2:00 in the afternoon, although the best pieces rarely wait that long. This is where we look for the small things: silver bowls, sugar pots, wine tasters, serving pieces and lovely, unidentifiable objects that simply ask to be brought home.
Then there is Les Puces de Paris Saint-Ouen, just beyond the northern edge of Paris. It is less a flea market than a city devoted to objects. We wander through the stalls and passages of Vernaison, Paul Bert Serpette and the markets surrounding Rue des Rosiers, searching among fine antiques, old hotel silver and pieces that have passed through generations of French homes.
Saint-Ouen welcomes the public on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., and on Mondays from 11:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Friday morning is traditionally reserved for professionals—which sounds wonderfully serious, although we have never believed enthusiasm should require credentials.
Farther south, the canals of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue lead to one of the great antique destinations of Provence. Every Sunday, the town fills with market stalls, antique dealers, linens, baskets, flowers, food and objects of every imaginable history. It is possible to begin the morning looking for silver and end it holding a baguette, a bundle of lavender and something we cannot quite explain buying.
The town becomes even more irresistible during its major international antique fairs around Easter and August 15, when hundreds of additional dealers arrive.
And then there are the brocantes with no famous name at all.
A handwritten sign beside a country road.
A village square filled with folding tables.
A Sunday sale announced on a poster taped to a bakery window.
These may be our favorites because there is no map for what we will find. Only the promise of the hunt.
London
In London, Saturday belongs to Portobello Road.
The market stretches through Notting Hill, but the serious search begins early, when the antique dealers are setting out silver, china, old cutlery and peculiar little treasures whose original purposes have long been forgotten. The market operates throughout the week, but Saturday is its principal trading day and the moment when Portobello feels most like Portobello.
Friday morning takes us to Bermondsey Square Antiques Market.
It opens at 6:00 a.m.—an hour that separates the hunters from the merely curious—and continues until 2:00 p.m. We arrive early for the silver, cutlery, jewelry and tabletop pieces, fortified by coffee and the belief that nothing truly wonderful was ever found after sleeping late.
London also sends us into antique arcades, small neighborhood shops and estate sales, where the best discovery may be sitting quietly in a cabinet rather than displayed beneath a market awning.
The rule is simple: look everywhere.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles requires stamina.
On the first Sunday of most months, the Pasadena City College Flea Market opens from 8:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. More than a shopping trip, it is a dig—rows of dealers, boxes under tables and the occasional piece of silver that makes the entire morning worthwhile.
The second Sunday of every month belongs to the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena. Serious buyers can enter as early as 5:00 a.m.; everyone else arrives from 9:00 a.m. and shops until 3:00 p.m. We like to think we are reasonable people, but reason becomes less important when the right vessel may be gone by breakfast.
On the third Sunday of the month, we head south to the Long Beach Antique Market at Veterans Stadium. Early admission begins at 5:30 a.m., with regular shopping from 6:30 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. It covers more than twenty acres, which means the day requires good shoes, decisive instincts and absolutely no complaining.
And throughout Los Angeles, we follow estate-sale notices into houses whose doors might otherwise never open to us.
The photographs online offer clues.
A dining room cabinet.
The corner of a silver tray.
Something gleaming behind a porcelain figurine.
Sometimes the vessel is exactly where we hoped it would be.
Sometimes we leave with nothing but a story.
That is part of the hunt too.
Santa Barbara and Montecito
Closer to home, we search estate sales throughout Santa Barbara, Montecito, Hope Ranch and the surrounding hills.
These are intimate hunts. A beautiful bowl may have spent fifty years on the same sideboard. A sugar pot may still carry the initials of the family who once used it. We are never simply buying an object; we are meeting it at the moment one household’s story ends and another begins.
Several times a year, the Santa Barbara Antique Show brings antique and vintage dealers to the Earl Warren Showgrounds for a full Friday-through-Sunday weekend. The dates change, which only adds to the anticipation.
We also keep an eye on local estate-sale listings and antique dealers because the hunt does not follow a convenient schedule. It can begin with a phone call, a photograph sent by a friend, or a sign spotted while driving to lunch.
What We Seek
We are not looking for perfection.
We are looking for character.
A softened edge.
An old monogram.
The faint marks left by years of polishing.
A lid that fits with a satisfying little click.
A shape we have never encountered before.
Not every vessel comes home with us.
Some are too precious to alter. Some are too fragile. Some are beautiful, but not quite right. And some seem to belong exactly where they are.
But occasionally, we see a piece and know immediately.
This is the one.
It is wrapped, carried home, carefully cleaned and polished, then given a new purpose as an object of light.
Because every Basic French candle begins long before the wax is poured.
It begins in Paris before breakfast.
In London at dawn.
In a Los Angeles parking lot.
At an estate sale in the hills of Montecito.
It begins with curiosity, patience and the willingness to look beneath the table.
It begins with the hunt.
