When Camille Nichelini and Yuka Iwasaki started selling their collection of vintage home goods on Instagram, they didn’t expect it to turn into a full-time job. Nichelini, 24, and Iwasaki, 34, are neighbors in Los Angeles who met on Instagram a few years ago through their involvement in fashion (Nichelini worked in visual merchandise, while Iwasaki worked in design).
“I think what we have in common and what bonded us is that we were always thrifting all the time,” Iwasaki says. “We loved thrifting so much we would always buy extras of things or find extras of things. It got to be a problem at some point.”
In March 2020, Nechilini started the Instagram account @residentobjects in hopes that she might be able to use it as a platform to resell some of the vintage home goods she had been collecting. She ran it mostly as a hobby, and when Iwasaki had a few items of her own she was hoping to resell, Nichelini suggested she list them on Resident Objects as well. The account’s following started to grow, and Iwasaki, who had recently been laid off from her day job, began focusing more of her attention on it.
