Marin’s Paris-style flea market offers a dash of French experience
The French Market in San Rafael was inspired by the famed Saint-Ouen antiques and second-hand market on the outskirts of Paris.
For Bay Area lovers of antiques, second-hand bargains and vintage anything, there are some well-known weekend flea markets that provide good hunting grounds. But San Rafael’s French Market offers a little je ne sais quoi with a dash of Paris — but stateside.
The market, which operates the second Sunday of every month, features vendors who deal in quality furniture, second-hand home and garden items and beautiful vintage clothing, jewelry and collectibles. But it also tries to live up to its name by replicating a uniquely French experience. Veteran antiques dealer Fern Loiacono of Mill Valley opened the French Market in 2011, inspired by her memorable visits in the 1980s and 1990s to the famous Saint-Ouen flea market outside Paris. The next one is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Marin Civic Center’s Armory parking lot No. 2 in San Rafael.
While most Americans visiting the French capital might head to the Louvre or Eiffel Tower, Loiacono would ride the metro north to Le Marché aux Puces de Paris Saint-Ouen, as it is officially known. There, she would wander the maze of lanes and alleys of the Marché du Biron or the Marche Vernaison, markets that are part of the larger complex. She could stop by any of the hundreds of boutiques, stalls and showrooms and browse everything from museum-quality, centuries-old furniture to second-hand books, objets d’art and vintage designer fashions.
Loiacono was ostensibly on the hunt for turn of the 20th-century porcelain dolls from Paris and Germany that she collected and sold. But the street vibe of the world’s largest antiques market gave her so much else to savor.
“There was the whole ambiance,” Loiacono said. “Getting up very, very early and seeking what you can find, whether the dolls or art. There always was the sense of finding a hidden treasure. There also were cafes with music, the aroma of the food, the people. It was such a wonderful atmosphere.”
Marin’s French Market can’t offer visitors the streets of Paris, of course. But it still operates in the park-like setting of the Marin County Civic Center campus, in a parking lot near a scenic lagoon and the county’s signature Frank Lloyd Wright-designed administration building and Hall of Justice.
It also offers so many temptations for antiques aficionados, thrift-store mavens or anyone who loves to look at beautiful things. They can browse more than 140 booths, operated by dealers selling vintage and estate jewelry, French country furnishings, chinoiserie dishware, delicate crystal, women and men’s fashions from the 1920s to the 1970s, art posters, Tiffany or Art Deco lamps, beautiful textiles and rugs, African art and even old typewriters.
To give the market that Paris-street feel, Loiacono has enlisted a food truck to sell sweet and savory crepes and musicians to entertain, filling the air with jazzy sounds from the 1920s and 1930s or the classic French standards once sung by Edith Piaf and Yves Montand.
The quality of the vendor displays and the items they sell also gives the French Market the classiness of the markets Loiacono liked to visit in Paris, according to Pam Lee, one of the market’s longtime vendors. In other words, the French Market isn’t known for selling junk, Lee said.
“Fern is discriminating, and she wants the vendors to put on a presentation, like they’re doing an indoor show,” Lee said.
That doesn’t mean that people won’t find bargains. They’ll also meet dealers who are more than happy to share their deep knowledge and passion for what they sell.
For her part, Lee is called the Bakelite Lady, because she sells colorful, costume jewelry from the 1920s to the 1960s. Made of bakelite, an early plastic first trademarked in 1907 and widely used in manufacturing, Lee’s bracelets, bangles and pins have become highly prized. But Lee also can wax poetically on the history of the substance and how bakelite became a popular material for jewelry, favored by such designers as Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli and worn by socialites and movie stars.
Robin Rawlings Wechsler, a photographer who works with Loiacono on her social media pages, admires the vendors who spend their weeks visiting yard and estate sales, browsing second-hand stores or going to auctions, all to find “that something special.”
“These special somethings hold our history, tell our stories, speak for our artists, and are often downright so beautiful, you have to hold it in your hand to believe it,” Rawlings Wechsler recently said, while sharing photos of a market visit on Facebook.
Details: The French Market is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the second Sunday of every month at Marin Civic Center at Civic Center Drive in San Rafael. The next one is this Sunday. Admission and parking are free — and you can browse Marin’s popular Sunday Farmers Market, which runs from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the other side of the county administration building, on the same visit. Find more details at thefrenchmarketmarin.com.