Who We Are
Where Our Story Began
It was May Day, 2021, when Piper met Lori during a Baker Street fair right in front of her sister Blake Henry’s yoga studio in Maplewood, NJ. Piper was selling her curated antique gold watch chains and Lori fell in love with the collection. Within 20 minutes, a new business was born. One call to Amy Hughes, founder of Maplewood Mercantile, a women owned business co-op, inspired a series of pop-ups and an artist residency that was so successful we were invited to open our permanent shop space in April 2022. We love our sunlit back corner space in a 1920’s converted auto garage. Our amazing Merc Maidens, our creative clients and community have become an important cornerstone in the unique and diverse village of Maplewood.
"PipersTalisman is an extension of our storied lives, our souls, and a very deep lust to share sacred tokens with others."
Piper Kupersmith & Lori Sutherland
We are Perfectly Imperfect
Most of our designs are made from vintage pre-loved treasures sourced from New York City flea markets and thrift shops (now closed) over the last 45 years. As a result, each piece has been curated with parts that are different in color, age, tone and metal purity to testify to their history. Now their history continues with you in loving care. It is only natural that our curated pieces may have bumps and bruises over the course of the past 100+ years.
"There is no real beauty without some slight imperfection."
James Salter
A Little More About Us
About Piper
Piper Kupersmith is a born New Yorker and passionate collector. Since age 11, she's been unearthing adorned treasures to sweeten her soul. In addition to being trained in the healing and applied arts, one of Piper's magical powers is in sourcing and repurposing vintage and antique jewelry. Called “The Sourceress”, Piper transforms these found tokens of love and power and curates them into legacy pieces to behold. Piper's personal collection has reached epic proportions and is always finding its way into the shop. While Piper loves her friends and family, it's her fur babies, Theo and Tiger, that rule her roost.
About Lori
Lori “The Dame” Sutherland started collecting vintage way before vintage became Vintage! With her passion, she combined activism and event production when Housing Works Thrift Shops first opened their doors. These successes led to producing top fundraisers at New York City Opera with the fashion elite for several years. Staying vintage strong with an experienced love for jewelry, Lori teamed up with antique & vintage jewelry designer Piper Kupersmith in 2021 and together they opened PipersTalisman at Maplewood Mercantile. Lori loves to enlighten people to their own unique beauty. Sharing stories about Vintage & Antique jewelry is an extremely important, sustainable way to freely self-express one's soul in the most pleasurable way! Lori loves being of service, spending time with her friends and running around with Melvin, her ferocious yorkie.
Customer Photo Gallery
