Pink Henna

Standing in front of Pink Henna’s shop windows, it is impossible not to follow the lure of the colourful, kitsch, collectables, retro and hand-made items on display. About half the items for sale at Pink Henna are vintage and the other half new creations. Naela Nammour’s eye-catching boutique in Mar Mikhael, also specializes in vintage accessories, including handbags, jewelry, home-ware such as crockery, candleholders, ashtrays and old tins.

Nammour classifies an item as vintage, that is 25 years old or older. She has bags going back to 1900 and 1910, almost every decade of the 20^th century is represented up to the 1980s. Over decades of collecting, buying and selling vintage items, she has become a vintage expert.

“To me, second-hand is more recent, vintage is older. Vintage may be second-hand but not necessarily as you sometimes find items that have never been used,” she explained. Naela lived in Paris for 20 years and travelled around the world and has collected a lot. While she dearly holds on to many items found in various parts of the world, some of her collectables constituted the initial stock for Pink Henna, opened five years ago.

Locals have discovered vintage, they often come to look for a present, sometimes magazines or production companies come to take items on consignment for ads or shoots.

To stock up, Naela travels once or twice a year, to comb through some of her favourite European flea markets and works with a few professional buyers in various places, including France, Great Britain and the US from whom she gets most of her stock.