My First Time Sourcing in Person (And the Piece I Couldn’t Let Go Of)

Sunbury Antiques Market
Kempton Park, Surrey, England

For the last few years, sourcing has meant trusting someone else’s eye.

I work with antique dealers in France—people who know the markets, the sellers, the difference between something merely old and something worth bringing home. They source for me, and I trust them completely. But I’d never done it myself. I’d never stood in a field at dawn, walking stall after stall, deciding in real time what deserved a second life.

That changed recently, in London, at Sunbury Market.

Among everything I brought home, one piece refused to become inventory.

I went with no real plan just curiosity and the feeling that, if I was going to keep building this business, I needed to know what it actually felt like to source on the ground. Not through photos someone sends me. Not through a dealer’s description. My own hands. My own instinct. No one to defer to.

What I didn’t expect was how much the people would stay with me.

I met sellers who’d been doing this for decades—English and French alike, many of whom had known each other for years, returning to the same market stalls week after week. They spoke about their pieces the way you’d speak about old friends. There was no rush, no sales pitch. Just people who genuinely loved what they did and were happy to share the story behind an object if you asked.

I came home with a small collection of French pieces: stoneware, linens, and a handful of jam jars with that soft, timeworn glaze you simply can’t recreate. Beautiful finds. The kind I would have been thrilled with on their own.

But then there was the cheese mold.

It’s incredibly old, and every inch of it tells that story. The glaze has been worn nearly through in places, softened by decades of real, everyday use. My first instinct—if I’m honest—was to price it for the shop like everything else.

I can’t do it.

I’ve never seen another one quite like it. The more I studied it, the more I realized the wear wasn’t damage. It was evidence.

Someone reached for this mold every day. They washed it, filled it, emptied it, and did it all over again for years. You don’t wear an object down like that unless it earned its place in your home. Unless it was loved in that quiet, ordinary way that only reveals itself through time.

I felt that the moment I picked it up, long before I could explain why.

When dealers source for me, I receive beautiful pieces they’ve chosen. But this was different. I discovered it myself. I felt its weight in my hands. I noticed the details that photographs never quite capture—the subtle wear, the balance, the feeling that this object had lived an honest life before finding its way to me.

That’s what changed on this trip.

I realized sourcing isn’t only about finding beautiful antiques. It’s about learning to trust your own eye. Your own instincts. Your own hands.

I don’t know if I’ll ever list this cheese mold. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.

For now, it stays with me—not because it’s the most valuable piece I found, but because it reminds me why I started doing this in the first place.

Some objects become part of your collection.

Others become part of your story.

Blessings,

Cristina