Stock’s Up Issue #39

The economy may be down, but kitsch is still up — and serious collectors continue to acquire unabashedly

By Alexa Weibel
Published: March 1st, 2009 | 3:20pm

Lala Stage’s lifelong addiction to collecting started with a childhood enchantment: the PEZ container, that seemingly miraculous creation fusing both candy and toy. In high school, Stage spotted one from her childhood at a thrift store, picked it up, and hasn’t stopped in over a decade. “The next thing I knew I was seeing them everywhere in stores and I started buying them almost every time that I went shopping,” confessed the 33-year-old from Weirsdale, Florida. She’s invested up to two weeks’ salary on individual items of her stock, which has garnered some 600 pieces, crammed together on a wall display.

How does a seemingly pedestrian task become a lifelong quest? Is it the joy of the unattainable? The excitement of the search? Or perhaps it’s the low start-up cost — though serious collectors with the means are happy to splurge on special pieces, “cheap” seems to be the prevailing criteria for collections. Not only do low-market items make things easy on the wallet, they embody a sense of kitsch that feeds a collectors’ mentality. Portlander Kati Kryzer, 29, rivals Stage with an assortment of upwards of 1,500 PEZ containers, a collection she inadvertently started as a kid. “I didn’t really set out to collect, it just sort of happened, and kind of turned into an obsession,” she says. “People come to my house and know that I collect, but it always amazes them to actually see how many I’ve accrued.”

That Kryzer’s obsession was sparked by a happy accident is not at all uncommon — many collections are rooted in happenstance. As luck would have it, Twiggy Levy stumbled upon the start of her owl collection — the remnants of someone else’s — at a thrift store over ten years ago. “Someone must have recently passed away or gotten over their collection, and I filled up an entire shopping cart.” The 28-year-old Brooklynite has accrued 300 or so figures — and a slew of taxidermy pieces — but insists that she is still picky. “I’m more inclined toward the ’70s versions of the owl. It’s safe to blame my mother.”

Sleek minimalism may dominate today’s mainstream décor, but collections like Kryzer’s prove that kitsch still thrives — especially on a budget. Chicagoan Lauren Walsh, 26, boasts that nothing in her collection — which ranges from souvenir pennies and snow globes to nursery lamps and photobooth strips — costs more than about $6. “I’m very thrifty. Okay, I’m cheap. I think this is the most exciting thing about collecting … the thrill of finding stuff for cheap.” Her collection was garnered mostly through thrift store ventures and travel, but also through the watchful eyes of friends. “I accidentally start collections all the time,” says Lauren. The only drawback? “I’ve been through my share of collection phases. The worst thing about those is that people tend to never forget about them.”

Passing phases aside, avid collectors agree that you can’t ever have enough of a good thing. Says Perkins, “A complete collection means stopping, and I’m no quitter.”