Bridget Connelly and Liza McGowan are the owners and Operators of After Hour Vintage. Although Bridget has set her sights on marrying French so she can finally change the spelling to “Brigitte.” And it’s Liza with a ‘z’ not Lisa with an ‘s’.
How old are you?
Our combined age is somewhere between 69 and 72.
What are you known for? What products or services do you provide?
We’re a vintage boutique that sells extravagant furniture, art and accessories. Our pieces and showroom are available for rental and we also offer interior styling services and art direction.
Our current collection features mostly 80’s Deco; everything looks like it could have been pulled from the set of “Scarface,” so we’ve been referring to it as “cocaine decor”. Bridget loves 80’s sleaze and Liza gravitates towards bold Postmodern pieces. Everything we have has some wild history. We have a collection of vintage furs, some of which came from the “Carol Burnett” show. Don’t worry vegans, the minks were dead before you were alive.
Any formal education…school of hard knocks, etc….
Both of us are from the Midwest where Lazy Boys with cup holders in the arms were all the rage, so we bonded over having to overcompensate in the style department. Bridget is an interior designer who has a background in historic home renovation and Liza has a background in marketing and video production, and currently works in TV.
What inspired you to do what you did? :
We’re both financially challenged artists who needed to find a way to drink out of Baccarat.
Tell us how it started…
We stumbled upon our first estate sale while walking in the Hollywood Hills in 2019. It was the home of Art Babbitt, a legendary animator who created the “Goofy” character, and Barbara Perry, an actress and dancer. Their home was packed with 100 years of memorabilia that told the story of their lives, and the family needed help liquidating it. Bridget and Liza helped by spreading the word about the sale to their friends and sorting animation cels for a donation to the AFI. We walked out of there with crystal decanters, opera records, and a new addiction: estate sales. We started frequenting them every weekend, reveling in the history and story behind the people who lived in the homes and the pieces we found. We built relationships with estate brokers who Bridget began working with, staging and selling.
Tell us how it’s going?
We’re located in the back corner of “Deep House Design” which is a modern furniture store that is also home to artists and fashion designers (@Joancheri_art and @ximenavalero). We’re like a speakeasy back there – stop in and join us for a Cognac and biscotti.
How does what you do benefit your clients, customers or community?
Because we’re vintage, our clients get quality pieces that aren’t made of particle board that won’t end up sticking out of a dolphin’s spiracle. We promote up-and-coming local artists. We currently feature the work of Patrick Connelly (@pconcave). He does some really sinister film noir themed linocut prints. We plan to bring the community together by hosting events at our showroom. We’d love to partner with any of the French restaurants Bridget has been fired from to cross promote our businesses. Shout out to L’Appart and Mignon.
Are there any obstacles…and if so, how do you overcome them? :
Bridget drives a Mini Cooper with a coolant leak and Liza sports an cobalt blue chevy cobalt with an odometer reading worthy of The Guinness Book of World Records. Every delivery is an obstacle.
Any plans for the future?
We’re taking on more styling and design gigs, and would love to be the go-to cocaine decor and art deco broads for art directors in entertainment. We’d love to be involved in the restoration of historic landmarks like the Hotel Cecil and Barclay projects or any of the theaters on Broadway, plus be a part of the design teams involved in section 8 housing. .
www.afterhoursvintagela.com
