Do you ever walk into a room and feel like you’ve been transported into another world? The colours are bold and vibrant, but they’re comforting. The room is chaotic — messy even — but it’s organized. The room is full of contradictions, but it’s amusing. That’s the feeling you get when you enter the Orange Trunk Vintage Rentals studio.
There’s chairs against the walls, piles of books, and shelves filled with colourful trinkets. You can’t help but wander; your curiosity gets the best of you.
Heather Johnston, the creative director and stylist, greets you at the door. A sweet, but bubbly, lady with years of experience and lots of stories to share.
The names
Each piece of furniture at Orange Trunk has a name, with almost all of them named after someone or something. Each piece has a story and a personality.
“We have one of our pieces that was named after the person, well sort of the person, we rented or bought it from,” says Johnston. “She was very pregnant at the time, and she had a four-year-old.”
When Johnston went to pick up the sofa, the little girl was extremely distraught. She was confused, why were they taking her family’s sofa away? She just couldn’t comprehend it.
“I already had one named Isabel so I didn’t name it Isabel after the four-year-old, but [the mother] was pregnant with a little girl who they were planning to name Margo,” says Johnston. “So we named the sofa Margo.”
Johnston also has a loveseat named Butterscotch, which she named after its warm copper colour.
“I have another piece. It’s called the Jillian. Jillian Harris rented it for an event here in the city, so we named it Jillian,” says Johnston.
Accidental career
Johnston accidentally stumbled into the vintage rental business in 2013 and has been styling and renting for nearly 10 years.
“I had a friend that wanted to do something for another friend of hers for her wedding,” Johnston says. “In looking for some vintage rentals, [she] couldn’t find any and couldn’t find anybody in town that was doing it. So she kind of suggested it to me, and we jumped into it.”
Johnston didn’t anticipate the attraction her work would receive. “We got, like, surprisingly busy,” she says. “We thought, if we had six jobs our first year we would be really happy, and we had six jobs our first month.”
As the business grew and they became busier Johnston’s partner, who was a teacher, decided to step away due to time constraints. Johnston continued solo.
Curated collection
Johnston’s pieces are all unique and to find them she spends time looking at estate sales, antique stores, Facebook Marketplace, and sometimes Kijiji. However, Johnston also gathers furniture and antique pieces from her clients.
“To be honest, a lot of our pieces are now coming from brides and couples that we, you know, rented to years ago, who remember us and are like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna call Heather because my aunt so-and-so has passed away and she had all this beautiful furniture,’” says Johnston.
Quite a lot of their furniture comes from referrals, but Johnston also has pieces she’s gathered from all over North America.
“A few pieces have actually come back from New Brunswick with us,” Johnston says. Her family is originally from Fredericton, N.B. and moved to Calgary in 2008.
“We drove to New Brunswick [for a trip]. And we have four kids. So we took a minivan and we drove,” Johnston says.
During the trip, Johnston’s children decided to stay behind for a while. She and her husband were left to drive their empty van back across the U.S. and Canada. The couple picked up many vintage pieces along the way.
“There’s pieces from everywhere and we’ve bought pieces from as far down as L.A., and through Montana and all those states down there,” Johsnton says.
Favourite pieces
Johnston says it’s hard for her to pick a favourite piece from her studio. She loves them all and, depending on her mood, her favourite pieces change. As of right now, she loves a cake plate that her children got for her as a present.
“I have a white Fenton hobnail cake plate that has the ribbon edge and the hobnail bottom scan. My kids gave it to me as a Mother’s Day gift,” says Johnston.
“I’ve rented it out and every time it goes out the door, I’m just thinking, it plays on my heart a little. You know, pulls my hair. So maybe, maybe that one would be my favourite piece. I should probably take it out of inventory,” says Johnston.
Wedding trends
The current trend in furniture used at weddings is lots of colours, especially pink. Johnston says pink will always be popular at weddings, calling it a trend that won’t go away.
“So whether it be pink and champagne and those typical wedding colours. Right now it’s very much a jewel-toned world. So a lot of like butterscotches, deep reds, deep blues and purples, yellows and gold,” says Johnston.
Wicker is another big trend in weddings right now. The Palm Springs type of Boho is very in, but it is slowly on its way out.
“It used to be a lot of like, you know, the more Victorian look, the better. It was like the more ornate the wood, the better,” says Johnston.
Photographer’s opinion
Themes in weddings and unique furniture have always been a big deal for couples and, although they are nice, they can quickly become costly.
According to wedding photographer Sofia Katherine, furniture does not affect photos at all; “A photo is meant to give a viewer a feeling or to take them back to a moment,” she says. “In 30 years to come, a bride’s photo with her mother who is no longer alive will not be greater or less great because they had the most boujee sofa to sit on.”
Katherine says when the bride will look back at the photos, she’ll likely be transported to that moment thinking about her and her mother rather than the furniture. Katherine also adds that during most weddings, couples are usually camera shy and tend to stay away from posey photos. In those cases, furniture does not matter.
Wedding redo
Johnston never got the chance to have her favourite pieces at her wedding.
“I planned [the wedding] all on my own and I hated it. I found it a little bit frustrating because I couldn’t find what I wanted,” says Johnston.
Her wedding was long before the business. However, if Johnston would do her wedding all over again, she would have all the items she missed out on.
Johnston says “I would do a really cool head table. Just because that’s one of the things that I really wanted to do and attempted to do back then, but the things just weren’t available right then.”
