The Unicorn Is Out There

Lane made its name in Altavista, Virginia, building cedar hope chests: the box a young woman filled with linens and dishes for a future household. By the 1980s, the company was making all kinds of furniture, and some of it, I'd argue, was pure glamour.

White lacquer. Gold trim. That's the set I found in an apartment in Arizona, sitting on carpet, so pristine it looked like nobody had ever put down a glass on it.

I bought the whole set. It was my first real unicorn, and it's the one I still measure the feeling against.

I use that word a lot. Unicorn. I've started to realize it means something more specific than rare, and that the difference matters.

What makes something a unicorn

Rare things are everywhere if you know where to look. A unicorn is rarer than rare.

It's rare, yes. But it's also right: right for you, or right for the room, or right for the client you're hunting for. It's in a condition that shouldn't be possible given its age. It shows up at a price that makes no sense. And it appears at exactly the moment you happen to walk in.

All of those have to line up at once. That's why it feels like magic when it happens. You're not just finding a thing. You're finding a coincidence.

Every eye has its own unicorns

What's a unicorn to me might be a Tuesday to someone else.

My taste runs postmodern 1980s, lacquer and gold and drama, a little Scarface, a little Goodfellas. So my unicorns look like that. The Lane set. The gold étagères that live in my living room now. A black laminated Italian bedroom set that lights up with neon.

A dealer might walk right past any of those. Someone who loves raw wood and Japanese joinery might find them loud. That's fine. A unicorn isn't defined by the market. It's defined by recognition, the moment one particular eye meets one particular object and something clicks.

This is also why sourcing for other people is a skill and not just a shopping trip. When I hunt for a client, I'm not looking for my unicorns. I'm trying to see theirs.

Hunting for a client's unicorn

Before a hunt for a client, I set an intention. Show me what's meant for this person. Not for me. For them.

Usually a client's unicorn isn't the thing they described. It's the thing underneath the thing they described. They asked for a lamp. What they needed was the lamp that made the whole room feel like the one in their head. When I find it, I text them a photo.

I love finding people something they didn't know existed. That's the unicorn feeling, handed over.

The ones that got away

Every hunter has the unicorn they didn't take home.

Mine is a black panther table with matching light stands. Three separate times, I had the chance to buy it at a ridiculous price, once for around $900 for the full set, once for around $300, once for around $200. And three times, I didn't.

I haven't seen it since.

That kind of thing could make you bitter. It makes me determined. Somewhere, that panther table is sitting in a garage or a back bedroom or a thrift store with bad lighting, and one day I'll walk in.

Hope is part of the method

This is the thing I most want people to understand about hunting: it runs on hope.

Not optimism in a vague, everything-will-work-out way. Hope as a working habit. When I come home empty-handed, I don't think I couldn't find it. I think it's out there and I'm going to find it. And then I wonder what I'll find on the way.

That attitude is the difference between a hunt that feels like a chore and a hunt that feels like an adventure. If you believe the unicorn exists, you look harder. You go into the store you almost skipped. You check the back room. You turn the table over.

How to find your own

You can't schedule a unicorn, but you can make yourself findable to one.

Know your own eye. Pay attention to what makes you stop, again and again, and you'll start to recognize your unicorns before you've even fully seen them.

Go often. Unicorns favor the people who keep showing up. One visit a year won't do it. Regular looking will.

Look everywhere. Not just the famous markets. The tiny thrift store, the estate sale in a neighborhood you never go to, the Marketplace listing photographed sideways.

And when you see it, decide. Unicorns don't wait. I learned that from a panther table, three times.

Out there

At Joey Rose, a lot of what we do as a Los Angeles personal vintage sourcing studio comes down to this belief. We go looking because we know the extraordinary thing is out there, just sitting, waiting for someone who will recognize it and take care of it.

I believe that about furniture. I believe that about lamps and art and strange objects. I believe that about a black panther table with matching light stands.

The unicorn is out there. That's not a hope. It's a hunting strategy.