Luxury home stager Jason Saft’s annual tag sale is no ordinary discount shopping experience: It’s a chic bargain hunter’s favorite event that draws designers, collectors and enthusiasts from near and far to a heavily marked-down, personally curated array of furniture.
Last year’s event drew hundreds of people and helped Saft — founder and CEO of Staged to Sell Home — make room for fresh inventory.
This weekend, he’ll see if shoppers have the same fervor for home decor and accessories as they do for furniture at his first-ever Collector’s Market.
The event comes in response to reams of fan requests, he said in a Tuesday phone interview.
“I just listened to people,” Saft explained, adding that he spends about six hours a week responding to his more than 129,000 Instagram followers. “A lot of people were like, ‘I love all these little things that you’re always putting on Instagram and that you collect. I wish I could find that.’”
Now, they can: This Saturday (and, for VIPs, Friday, too), Saft will display more than 800 items in a 4,000-square-foot Industry City space adjacent to his that conveniently became available a few months ago.
The for-sale items were accumulated by Saft over the course of a decade-plus scouring flea markets and specialty shops, attending auctions and vintage sales. Ceramics from the artists Devin Wilde and Chala Toprak will also be available.
Asked to highlight a few standout options, he went with an old pogo stick from the 1950s or ‘60s that “I’ve almost killed myself on twice” ($50); a recently acquired trompe l’oeil dresser he initially wanted to keep for himself, “but the style of the piece juxtaposed with so many other elements is exactly what I wanted the market to look like, so it’s a featured piece” ($2,000); and a large flamingo-form jardiniere from the early 1900s that Saft thinks will quench folks’ thirst “for some wild stuff” ($1,500).
He said that unlike the annual tag sale, most of the items at the Collector’s Market can be carried out “under your arm,” although there will be some larger furniture pieces in the mix (and movers available on site to coordinate delivery). The price range, $2 to $2,500, is also notably higher than the tag sale’s “rock-bottom” offers.
And most significantly for Saft, the presentation will be exquisite.
“Everything will be styled in vignettes, so you can see how these pieces live in a home — not on a folding table under fluorescent lights,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “I’ll be there all day, talking about scale, hanging art, layering objects and how to make your home feel collected rather than decorated.”
The event, Saft added, is a litmus test for bigger markets down the line. If Saturday’s is successful, he said he could see himself hosting more, perhaps with multiple vendors from across the nation.
“For now, though, we start here,” Saft wrote.
Jason Saft’s Collector’s Market is this Saturday, March 14, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 80 39th St., Suite 22-302 in Industry City. Entry is free.