Talk about a store that really does it all. Whether you need to buy or rent vintage furniture, get your digs styled-out, refinish an antique with the perfect hand-selected hue of paint or have someone search for something wildly specific so you don’t have to, well, the search stops here. The Savoy Flea is your Chicago shopping destination and Marianne De Ley is the lady to help you. This buying, renting, styling and advising happens by appointment only in the Chicago superstore, but two weekends a month, the warehouse opens for a “studio sale.”
For De Ley, the obsession with collecting started early– she describes how when she was young, her grandfather was tasked with babysitting her and that in order to get her “out of his hair,” he’d give her a small sum to shop with at the thrift store across the street. This “naturally turned me into a treasure-seeking junkie,” says De Ley. It was only a matter of time before her home was so overflowing with the fruits of her labor that opening a store to share and sell some of it was the only logical next step. Read on to learn who she would choose to kick-back with given the chance to time travel, and why “paint it black” could be counted as her second motto.
