There’s something about Something Vintage, the rental company tucked inside an unassuming industrial park in Temple Hills, Maryland, known for its special occasion china, tableware, and furniture for weddings, that feels like the happiest place on earth.
Owner Dawn Crothers strolls through the floral wallpapered vestibule (there’s also a giant monstera and gumball machine), past an illuminated sign reading “Welcome to the End of the Rainbow” and into the showroom. It’s not that Something Vintage is renting anything that other places don’t have—linens, furniture, dining chairs, bars, plates, flatware—it’s that their style is just so bright, cheery, bold, and unique.
Crothers came up with the idea for her company after her own (first) wedding in 2012. Style Me Pretty, a popular blog, was about to publish her wedding photographs and Crothers, who had collected vintage items for the celebration, knew there would be demand. And she was right. “I was working as an intelligence analyst at the time, but this was really fun, and I really liked doing it,” she says. She cobbled together a website and showroom in her basement and Something Vintage was born.
Now, 13 years later, Crothers has seven warehouses and a staff of 80, including a number of refugees from Afghanistan and Syria. “I think it makes us a more rich and vibrant company,” she says. The warehouses are neatly organized by item type. Something Vintage is also now printing their own linens and there’s a pottery studio where most of their dishware is being fired in a kiln.
Whatever she doesn’t create herself, Crothers sources from places like Facebook Marketplace and estate sales where she has pickers looking for very specific items. Almost 90 percent of their true vintage items have been reupholstered in gorgeous fabrics or have new accents like fringe or scalloped edges. “It’s a definite labor of love,” says Crothers.
As she shows off the warehouse, Crothers’ husband, Zach Baldwin, walks by. The two married in a surprise wedding in 2015 at the warehouse and two years ago he joined the company as director of operations, or what he jokingly calls “Chief Does It Fit in the Elevator Officer.”
The two walk back to the front of the warehouse where the whole company is gathering for a potluck, just behind their popular “Amina” tinsel chairs, an idea Crothers came up with during COVID.
“Handmade and vintage is our heart because I think there’s inherent beauty and uniqueness in them,” says Crothers. “Because anyone can get cheap stuff, you know, but then it all looks the same. We really just try to be unique.”
