Vintage in the Village

The celebrated Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen, known by Parisians as les Puces de Clignancourt or simply aux Puces, received a welcome injection of new life in June with the inauguration of the chic new Village Vintage, spearheaded by the iconic European furniture giant Habitat and the cutting-edge Paris fashion boutique L’Eclaireur. Housed in a gated courtyard of old ateliers and warehouses that once served as holding spaces for local vendors and high-end Paris dealers – including chandeliers destined for the swanky Paris showrooms of Maison Steinitz – Village Vintage projects a decidedly more upscale image and seeks to draw a younger, trendier fashion-conscious crowd.

This is good news, if not for disillusioned bargain hunters, who nowadays often forego Saint-Ouen for other markets, like Vanves and even gritty Montreuil, certainly for the Puces itself. Although still popular among hardcore seekers and tourists, the storied 150-year-old antiques market – the largest in the world – has experienced a steady decline in the last 10 years, with eBay and bargain retailers whittling away at its client base, but also in part a victim of its own success. From its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, prices seemed to increase in tandem with the market’s popularity, pricing out Saturday strollers and antiques lovers on a budget in favour of high-end dealers replenishing Paris shops and wealthy foreign buyers.

As much as prices seem increasingly geared toward a clientele willing to shell out the bucks, the Puces remains resolutely threadbare, recalling its hardscrabble past as the place where chiffonniers (rag pickers) could hawk their wares on blankets laid out on the ground outside the city gates and the purview of city health inspectors. In the 1920s, the market – finally reachable by the Paris Métro– introduced the covered stalls that remain today. But it wasn’t until just after World War II that the rag-and-bone men of the Puces were replaced by brocanteurs – dealers in second-hand furniture and whatever else of interest they could scrounge up. The oldest, Vernaison, Biron and Malik, are separate entities unto themselves. In fact, the Puces is actually a maze of some 16 distinct markets, most of them accessible via the Rue des Rosiers, the area’s central spine and a handy point of reference for visitors disoriented by the rabbit warren of tiny stands.

But getting lost in the market’s labyrinthine allées is all part of the fun. The baffling system of numbered stalls and passageways – a vestige of the old days – is fundamental to Saint-Ouen’s down-the-rabbit-hole ambiance and a cherished relic of the market’s history, the only flea market in the country with the protected status of “architectural heritage zone.” French to its core, a convivial mood prevails among merchants who banter and engage each other like neighbours over a fence, enjoying a game of bridge or lunch and a bottle of wine, with no great concern over empty stalls.

Despite the entrenched nostalgia, a younger, more enterprising group of design-savvy dealers has been quietly forsaking the bric-a-brac strewn image of the fleas in favour of stylish mini-boutiques that project a distinct ambiance and lend the flea market a frisson of drama and calculated chic. Some minimalist, others with a sort of Baroque eclecticism, the new generation tends to offer handpicked wares artfully displayed for maximum appeal. What has been lost in terms of the thrill of the hunt is more than made up for in uniqueness and originality. Here the work is done for you – at a price that design-conscious buyers are willing to pay. All this has set the stage for the next phase in the Puces’ renaissance.