Everything old is new again: antique & consignment shops open this weekend in Ridgefield

WILTON, CT — Four local women with a love of antiques, heirlooms and other vintage items will learn if their passion can ring cash registers when they open new businesses in Ridgefield on Friday.

The Grand Opening for all four shops will be held Oct. 14-16, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 346 Ethan Allen Highway

Live music, a food truck, local artists, pop-up clothing shop and raffles will be part of the inaugural weekend festivities.

Dana Bucci, of Ridgefield, is opening a brick-and-mortar shop fed by her Bluebird Estatesconsignment and estate sales business on the former Walpole Outdoors site. It will be situated next to Vixen Hill Village, a converted cottage which will house three antique home decor shops.

Always in Blooms, owned by Ridgefielder Amy Goodwin will operate alongside Lana Waldron-Taubin's Seasonal Celebrations by Lana, and Kelly Magner's Tiques & More. The latter two entrepreneurs hail from Wilton.

"We all have a love for finding unique, vintage pieces that we can reuse in our homes," said Kelly Magner, a teacher at Miller-Driscoll School in Wilton. "And we just kind of started talking, we all had a love for the same type of business. And a year later, the four of us were opening up a business."

Magner met her new partners in the course of her regular 'tiquing treks in the area, which included Wilton's semi-annual Minks to Sinks, and excursions to tchotchke Mecca The Elephant's Trunk in New Milford.

The women hope to turn their new stores into "destination" shopping by opening just a few days each month and offering food trucks, pop-up sellers, and live music as part of the experience.

Magner, who has been selling the curios she acquires online, has high hopes for the new venture in part because of her read on the TikTok generation's antiquing obsession.

"They actually call themselves 'Grandmillennials,' because they are looking for the grandma-inspired, vintage pieces to decorate their homes," Magner said.

In the glory days of New England antiquing, the span of Ethan Allen Highway from Ridgefield into New Milford and beyond was a veritable Marrakesh of antique markets and traders. Most have sadly shuttered, but there are more than a few hold-outs, and Magner hopes her new venture can play a part in rekindling interest in antiquing along Danbury Road.

"One of the things we are planning on doing is coming up with almost like a roadmap where customers can come in and scan a QR code and really find all of these places," Magner said.