‘Mad Men’ set decorator Amy Wells on the best Pasadena vintage shops
By David Keeps
“Mad Men” set decorator Amy Wells, twice nominated for an Emmy for her work on the show, is still creating pitch-perfect early 1960s interiors in the show’s third season. Wells has developed a reliable list of resources for buying the home furnishings needed to represent Manhattan swank, Palm Springs modern and suburban traditional.
“Pasadena has the crème de la crème of used furniture stores on this part of the planet,” says Wells, who invited The Times to tag along on a Saturday shopping trip. Here, she is photographed at the Pasadena Antique Center, a must-stop for vintage furnishings and accessories. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
Wells examines a decorative enamel, possibly by midcentury designer Harris Strong at Vintage! Vintage! Vintage!, a shop run by Susan Kotora, right, in the Pasadena Antique Center. “They have everything from Victorian to Art Deco, Hollywood Regency and Palm Springs modern,” Wells says of the sprawling two-story antique mall. Among her regular stops: Now/Again for ornate furniture, MJH Design Arts for Baroque and neo-classical antiques, Jack W. Smith for Art Deco, and the Modern Zoo and Bonita Interiors for lacquered traditional pieces used in “Mad Men” for the living room of the lead character, Don Draper. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
Beat-up pieces -- be they picture frames or coffee tables -- dont distress Wells. “Old wooden furniture, particularly American walnut and Scandinavian teak, is so forgiving,” says Wells, who swears by an oil-based rub-on product called Restor-A-Finish . Though “Mad Men” is celebrated for its use of post-World War II American office furniture and Danish modern designs, some of the sets are more traditional. The Draper family kitchen, for instance, leans toward Colonial revival. At the Salvation Army Antique Thrift Store at 35 W. Waverly Drive in Pasadena, Wells scored a pair of ornately framed farmer-and-his-wife needlework hangings. For more Americana, she heads to Mission Street in South Pasadena. She likes the fine Colonial and Federal furniture at Thomas R. Field; vintage draperies, vanity table items and knickknacks at Hodgson Antiques; and kitchenware at Mission Antiques. (Jay L. Clendenin /Los Angeles Times)
Charity-run thrift shops such as Out of the Closet and the Salvation Army are great for dishes and other decorative home items but the furniture can be fairly generic, Wells says. When she examines dressers and chairs in these stores, she looks for “good bones, drawers that slide out easily, and upholstered pieces that are easy to re-cover,” she says. “It doesnt have to be a familiar brand name to be quality.”
Here, at the Salvation Army in Pasadena, Wells looks at a jug and wonders whether it could be turned into a table lamp. “If I want something wired or need a vintage lampshade, I go to Practical Props in North Hollywood,” she says. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
The secret to second-hand furniture shopping, Wells says, reaching for the second of a pair of landscape paintings, “is sifting through the junk. There are great things surrounded by horrible things, so you have to go through and look at things slowly without getting distracted by other stuff. You have to do the editing.” The upside is that prices tend to be lower, and with so much stock, prices may be easier to negotiate. “I try not to make a store owner defensive by saying this is too much,” Wells says. “I always ask, ‘What’s your best price?’ It sounds much more positive.”
Among her favorite decorating-on-a-budget stores: Huntington Collection, which has last-Saturday-of-the-month sales and automatic markdowns after a piece has been on the floor for four weeks and Eastern Oriental Rugs for period-authentic floor coverings.
For more tips on sales, shops, and L.A. style check out our design blog, L.A. at Home. You can also tour dozens of great Southern California Homes at our Homes of The Times gallery. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)