a mini passerguide to vintage gift-giving: bode-esque bags, hermès scarfs, a signed faith ringgold book, and 40+ more gifts

weekly recommendations from the passerby team

In a special holiday edition of our weekly recs, our managing editor Meghan Racklin shares a mini guide to vintage shopping for gifts, from her favorite online search tools to the best places to buy gifts in new york city, with items to shop including a Sophie Buhai-esque necklace, a killer pleats please set, and a first-edition Eve Babitz.

Almost everything in my closet and my home is secondhand — it’s my preferred way to shop. It’s better for the environment, more cost-effective, and (in my opinion) more fun. I tend to use the same approach when shopping for gifts, looking for vintage and secondhand options first. But this poses some challenges. Vintage items often can’t be returned, and you don’t want to leave a loved one with a dress in the wrong size that they can’t wear and can’t return, or stick a friend with a full dinner set in a pattern they hate. Vintage gifts, in my opinion, should be timeless, a bit frivolous, and probably sizeless. To help with your holiday gift search, here are some recommendations and search tips:

Silk Scarves

Perfect because they’re sizeless, multi-purpose, and abundant on the secondhand market. A vintage Hermès scarf is a good gift option for a woman you want to impress.

How to find: You can try “100% silk scarf” + the color or colors of your choice as a search term (you’ll get a lot of results), or try specific designers — Hermès, of course, but also YSL, Dries Van Noten, Valentino, Gucci, etc.

Options to get you started: