Little City Thrifty to Bring Back Vintage Goodness to PVD
Browse through more than ninety booths of vintage and pre-loved clothing, decor, books, art, furniture and more this October.
Photo courtesy of Ampersand Creative Co.
Robin Dionne and BJ Mansuetti knew they were onto something when their first vintage marketplace drew more than 7,000 people to the WaterFire Arts Center in 2022.
“The lines were all the way out to the intersection,” Dionne says. “We even had news trucks pull over to ask what was happening.”
The couple hopes to repeat that magic again on October 4 and 5 at the biannual Little City Thrifty Vintage Market. But hurry — general admission tickets are historically quick to sell out.
More than ninety vendors will be on hand, selling everything from antique and vintage clothing, records, home decor, books, art, trinkets, furniture and more. About half the sellers are from Rhode Island, and half are well-known out-of-state sellers, including some coming in from as far as Florida.
More than ninety vendors will sell their wares at this weekend’s marketplace. Photo courtesy of Little City Thrifty.
Dionne and Mansuetti receive several hundred vendor applications for each event. They go off-grid for a couple of days to cull through spreadsheets, making sure they have enough clothing vendors, enough Rhode Island vendors and enough out of staters. It’s a highly curated process, taking into consideration not just what the vendor sells, but also if Dionne and Mansuetti can help them make connections with other vendors and make sure there’s a varied selection of both sellers and items.
“We want to make sure that we have diverse representation, smaller sellers, bigger sellers, new and old favorites that have been around for decades,” Dionne says. “We’re really creating a destination for the weekend.”
Mansuetti agrees.
“There’s a passion there when you bring ninety-plus different vendors that love history and share history into one room,” he says. “It’s just so much fun.”
The married couple, who live in Cranston, are the creative force behind Ampersand Creative Co., which produce the annual RI VegFest, the Good Trade Makers Market, the Bloom Flower and Home Market and other large-scale events. A longtime vegan, Dionne has been collecting and selling vintage clothes since high school, and Mansuetti collects and refinishes vintage kitchen knives, a passion he discovered during the pandemic.
Photo courtesy of Ampersand Creative Co.
“It means a lot to us that the Little City Thrifty community has become such an integral part of New England’s bustling vintage scene,” says Mansuetti. “This will be our eighth vintage market since starting out in 2022, and to see such love and support between our shoppers and dealers never gets old. Our shoppers bring a massive and much needed lift to our small business community after a tough string of years, and our dealers fully believe in ‘community over competition’ and want to see each other succeed. It really is a special weekend.”
Dionne adds, “As a longtime vintage collector and seller who is focused on re-use and recycling, I love to see the community come together to give vintage items a new life. Little City Thrifty is a fun party, but also has a deeper meaning for us, and part of that has always been our ongoing commitment to composting and reducing event waste so we can keep as much as possible out of the landfill.”
There will also be a good amount of size-inclusive vintage clothing vendors; after the first Little City Thrifty, they noticed that the racks carrying larger sizes were empty — that’s how popular they were.
Of course, all of this rad shopping is sure to make one hungry. Local vendors will be on hand selling all sorts of food and drink, including Ja Patty, which will have its famously flavorful Jamaican patties on hand, and Diego’s East Side will provide yummy Latin eats. There will also be a bar hosted by Inside Voices serving beer, specialty cocktails and mocktails, plus coffee from New Harvest Coffee Roasters and sparkling mineral water from Topo Chico. If you purchase your tickets online in advance, you will receive your choice of a small drink provided by participating beverage sponsors, or a discount on full-sized beverages.
Little City Thrifty 2024. Photo courtesy of Ampersand Creative Co.
General admission tickets are $8 in advance and may be available for $10 at the door. “Early Buying Hour” tickets are also available for $20, allowing for early entry one hour before the event starts (11 a.m. as opposed to noon) to provide more elbow-room while shopping and to get a first look at the vendors’ collections and rare items (as well as a limited edition cotton tote printed locally by Hungry Ghost Press). For more information and tickets, visit littlecityvintage.com.
Note: This article has been updated from a previous version which first published in March 2023.
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