The rumba girls do the Santa Monica Flea

While the Santa Monica Flea Market doesn’t always have the most outstanding finds, it’s truly bountiful in its offering of fascinating characters like Lui Antal Deak (showing an abstract oil painting below), a loquacious, lovely Frenchman who deals in fine art and who also happens to be a nudist, which is, we suppose, unrelated. This early Sunday morning, he informed us he’s met perfect ten “bleached out” supermodels, their passion and sensuality gone cold. “It isn’t about what kind of car you have, it’s about how you drive your vehicle,” he euphemistically and sagely stated.


From there, we moved onto Dalia Litvak’s booth to check out her inimitable jewelry. She began producing her creations a decade ago, when her collection of jewels, pearls, and chains, dating from the Victorian to the modern Italian and everywhere in between, began evolving into one-of-a-kind pieces, merging old and new in innovative, unexpected ways. We then dropped by our friend Cecilio’s booth (pictured below with one of a pair of 1930s ceramic lamps he’d sold just seconds before). Cecilio is a regular Santa Monica flea vendor and his shop on La Brea, Things Antiques, is a secret hotspot for stellar vintage finds. And you can head right next door after shopping with Cecilio for a Pink’s dog.


This particular Sunday was good for vintage clothing scouting and we were hunting for some tailored vintage dresses (with no success, unfortunately). Rococo Vintage (vintage clothing for tyrannical aesthetes) gave us a super tip concerning vintage clothing, which confounds most women in terms of sizing: take the waist of any vintage (or unsized) dress to your neck and wrap it around – if it reaches all the way around and overlaps a bit, it’s likely to fit your waist. Incredibly helpful for future vintage clothing shopping! Thanks, Rebecca Darling.



At Cindy Ciskowski’s booth, we nabbed a collection of new linen drumshades and a pair of graphic yellow and white pillows (shown off by Cindy herself in the photo) as we’re truly nuts about the color yellow right now. We also fell in love with a single pillow in a beautiful, subtly tea-stained, antiqued pattern. This trend is huge right now in New York. ABC Carpet is loving it in a major way. And so are we. Expect more of this in the months to come for textiles across the board – rugs, pillows, windows, upholstery, and more.








Go to the Santa Monica Flea Market and experience it for yourself! It’s on the first and fourth Sunday of every month and if the antique art, furniture, lamps, and jewelry don’t charm you, we’re willing to bet the people will.

LONG BEACH PART TWO: Where to Go and What to Do in Long Beach

If we have any spare room in the rumba vehicle after the Long Beach Flea Market, we promptly head over to4th street in Long Beach for further finds and fun. In between shopping ventures, however, we refuel at Number Nine, an outstanding little Vietnamese noodle spot at 2118 4th Street.



Try the lychee iced tea – it’s nothing short of scrumptious and someone is always at the ready to refill your glass! And the chicken pho is out of this world, as well. After our delicious, fast, and incredibly fresh lunch, we’re off again and we head directly next door to TreborNevets, a grand and gorgeous shop featuring new and vintage goods, interior design services, and fine art. It also happens to feature really great people, like its dapper co-owner, Robert Murphy, shown below.



There are at least a handful of vintage shops on 4th Street, Xcape and Deja Vu for furniture, and others offering brightly-colored ‘60s and ‘70s clothes and bric-a-brac and what seems like countless sunglasses. We dashed over to the newly opened Long Beach Antique Mall II on Freeman Avenue, which offers 12,500 square feet of antiques and vintage pieces – a strange and wonderful mixture of antique and mid-century furniture, costume jewelry, architectural salvage pieces, vintage surf and Hawaiian ephemera, and much, much more.



With such an eclectic collection, you can find some truly unusual pieces, like this pair of gas pumps that greet you upon entry like a pair of antiquated Texaco sphinxes.



Despite such a panoply of great finds at the antique malls (the original mall is located at 3100 Pacific Coast Highway), on this particular day we had little to no room left in the car (or on top of it, for that matter), so purchases were hindered. We did, however, completely fall in love with this vintage orange and off-white bench, originally from a bowling alley. Can’t you see this great piece in a spacious loft, along a wall with a magnificent piece of abstract art above it?



Long Beach is just a forty-minute drive down the 405 from Los Angeles - and definitely worth the trek if you’re in search of unusual vintage pieces, wonderful little stores, and delicious restaurants outside of L.A.! You may not find exactly what you’re looking for, but you’ll likely find something rare and compelling nonetheless. Keep your eyes and options open and you’ll be delighted at what you’ll discover.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts of other hotspots for vintage shopping – where to go, what to do, and how to have the most fun!

Our thoughts and prays are with Baby

Artist Baby Bryan is a life force, loved and admired by so many people. Not only is she an accomplished painter, but an expert horse back rider/jumper. Last Friday, May 20th she was riding in a local horse show and her horse fell through the jump and Baby was thrown. Due to the fall, she sustained serious injuries and is now hospitalized. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Baby and her family. We’re rooting for her complete recovery and looking forward to her next show at rumba.

rumba's first blog

Welcome to rumba’s blog! Subscribing before Sunday, May 15th will earn you 15% off any and all rumba purchases, as well as keeping you ahead of the curve with the latest and greatest rumba additions, advanced notice on sales, and our tips, musings, and projects regarding all things interior-related (and beyond). We intend to provide inspiration and beauty and reveal some tools of the interior design trade with you in our blog. We hope you’re as excited about it as we are!

This past weekend, we enjoyed a vibrant and lovely celebration of Sam Frost’s photography here at rumba. The opening reception for “Filling Emptiness”, a collection of Sam’s work culled from his travels in Paris, Scotland, Israel, and elsewhere, made for a crowded and wonderful evening. The exhibition remains on view (and available for purchase) here at rumba through June 5th, so don’t hesitate to come by to check them out. Or we’re happy to email you images should you be curious but not local to Los Angeles.

The talented artist himself, Samuel C. Frost, in front of his pieces, holding court and being an all-around gracious guy.



A viewer enjoying three of Sam’s pieces hung in rumba’s front room.



The crowd was enthusiastic and engaged. And it certainly didn’t hurt that the weather was almost tropical – balmy breezes on Ocean Park!



No doubt discussing Sam’s photography passionately with two art lovers.



The smallest of art lovers at our opening reception for Sam’s work, these two little ones fell in love with rumba and didn’t want to leave. Here they are in our front window, hamming it up for our photographer.



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