Tucked into an alley off the Boulevard Paul Vaillant Couturier in Montreuil and hardly visible from the street, Neptune is a little bric-à-brac shop – a junk store, essentially – of the sort rarely seen in Paris now: an attic-like space cluttered with silverware, leather purses, toys and spools of thread, with prices starting at just €1. A little further up the street is the shop’s second location, which sells furniture, home décor, vinyl and books.
Both shops are crammed with merchandise and although you’ll have to wade through a lot of junk first, here you’re likely to unearth the kinds of treasures and oddities that you wouldn’t find in a trendier, tidier second hand store. In any case, Neptune is no ordinary thrift shop, but rather a twenty-year community initiative, opened in the ’90s to support unemployed Montreuil residents. The store’s managers have no aspirations to transform their little operation into something cool or trendy, quite the opposite: they flee from bloggers.
Nevertheless, word-of-mouth has made Neptune into an unlikely shopping hub for modish twenty-somethings, actors looking to complete a costumes and that rarest of beasts, the CD collector – all without compromising the store’s community focus. On the contrary, clients can feel good about buying here as all proceeds go to helping Montreuil families in need.