By Matthew Breen
Scavenger can be such a hurtful word when misused. But Alexis Hadjopulos and Tom Whitman, owners of TINI, are unabashed in their obsession with digging up hidden gems at flea markets and estate sales. Though this year has been especially unkind to the independent boutiques that make us proud to live in L.A. (and not miles away in exurban exile), TINI was a thankful newcomer, quietly establishing itself on Fairfax Avenue during challenging times with a mandate to spice up local interiors. The home furnishings shop may be new, but its contents are all vintage finds. Thus its cheeky unofficial moniker: TINI stands for “This is not IKEA.” You’d be hard-pressed to find an Angeleno who hasn’t made at least one trek to IKEA in Burbank—many of us traversing the Cahuenga Pass to a series of oft-confusing off-ramps and sidestreets before the navy blue-and-yellow edifice beckons with $7.99 side tables and that killer plate of Swedish meatballs in the cafeteria. But TINI’s eye for second-hand is equally frugal, and often exponentially cooler. Whitman, who in his day job rules the West Hollywood club scene with such Saturday night imperatives as Cherry Pop at the Factory, recently answered some questions for those curious about his new den of curiosities.
Style Section LA: I was planning to go to IKEA, but your store’s name is implicitly telling me not to. What’s wrong with IKEA?
Whitman: Well, first of all, our store name is TINI. Our URL is thisisnotikea.com, but we’d prefer to steer clear of a Swedish megastore’s lawyers, thank you very much. There’s nothing wrong with IKEA. In fact, NO ASSEMBLY REQUIRED: TINI, a Fairfax Avenue design shop founded by Alexis Hadjopulos and Tom Whitman, challenges the notion that distinctive and affordable home furnishings require weird Swedish names and gratuitous amounts of particle board.
There’s nothing wrong with IKEA. In fact, they introduced a lot of the world to some great inexpensive design. Both Alexis and I had a lot of IKEA stuff in college and beyond. In fact, we model some of our ideas after IKEA—we want to deliver great design at low prices. But the difference is that if you buy a bookcase at IKEA, three of your friends will have the same bookcase. And you have to put it together. And it won’t survive more than a few years. With us, the vintage industrial shelves or the yellow bright ’60s plastic dresser will be unique. It’s great design at a low price, and it’s a conversation piece. And your best friend won’t have one. And she’ll be jealous. Here’s a photo of my living room. It looks pretty good but it needs a little something special. Little help? Absolutely. That’s one of the fun parts of our job. We can suggest a single piece to go in a room, or we can redecorate the entire room, or your entire house. And trust me, we want that piece to be “something special.” We want it to be the one piece in your living room that everyone goes straight towards and says, “That’s amazing! Where’d you get it?” SSLA: Retro rarities at TINI
Who is your shop for? Clearly not everyone.
I wish our shop were for everyone! But no, it’s not. It’s for people who are willing to think a little bit out of the box and be a little quirky. That doesn’t mean it’s only for people whose houses are bizarrely decorated with nothing but vintage pieces and strange things, or people who only like mid-century modern. You can have a relatively traditional design scheme in your house and still have a few unique pieces mixed in. My own house is very minimalist modern, but in each room there is at least one crazy, off-the- wall conversation piece. In my dining room is a Lucite podium where I display art books, and next to it, a strangely shaped vintage dress form that is painted a shiny black. In my bedroom, next to an Eames chair is an odd white Buddha from the ’60s. Vintage black globe with chrome base, $75
Where do you find all of your inventory?
We go to more than 100 garage sales and estates sales each week. We scour flea markets and online sources. People often contact us to sell stuff to us. All in all, we get about 100 new pieces every single week. There are a lot of reasons something is cool—great lines, a classic period shape, an interesting color. Sometimes we’ll find an item that we’ve never seen before, and that alone kind of makes it cool. A set of bright yellow dining height stools from the ’60s—how often have you seen that?
I live in Echo Park. Do you deliver?
We’ll ship anything to you. Though we just opened our brick-and-mortar store, we started as an online store. Every single piece in our 3000 piece inventory is online at our website, thisisnotikea.com. And our online shopping experience is as interesting as our in-store shopping. You can browse in traditional categories like chairs or desks, or by styles like mid-century or ’60s, or even by color. It makes the shopping experience more like a treasure hunt.
