A prop house is how your favorite cookbook sets the scene
A tour inside Lost + Found, a prop house with almost 50k pieces of inventory.
Before we jump in: In the last few weeks I hosted a sandwich pop up with a friend and also did sandwich pre-orders. If you’re in the New York City area, keep an eye out on this newsletter and on my Instagram for future popups!
Lost + Found is a prop rental house and photo studio located in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard. Since 2001, Lost + Found has offered a well-curated collection of 47,000+ pieces of tabletop items (anything that goes on a table), surfaces, furniture, art, lighting, and so much more. Adjacent to the warehouse is a large blank space and professional-grade kitchen that is great for recipe shoots, still life, and on-figure photography.
Lost + Found’s collection is vintage-leaning and “not basic” and is largely used for print photography, so you’d find their props in magazines, catalogs, ads, cookbooks. You might also catch their props in commercials, streaming, and movies. Basically, if you’re looking to curate a bookshelf for a vintage photoshoot, stage a scene for a cookbook, or shoot a commercial for TV, Lost + Found likely has what you need.
I recently stopped by and chatted with CEO Tania Vargas, got a tour of the space and spent a long time browsing all of their inventory. It’s hard to convey how much stuff and how much variety there is. 47,000 items is a lot, but you still don’t fully grasp what that means even when you’re looking at rows and rows of racks filled with plates, linens, and cutting boards. You want blue plates for your scene? Ok, here are 40 options.
Let’s take a look inside!
It’s hard to show up to a cookbook shoot for example with just one white plate because you don’t know what you’ll need. You always have to prop more than you need, so if you’re here, you can pull three off the shelves and try them all out and rent just one.
Prop styling for cookbooks is a very specific skillset. You’re shooting a hundred recipes and everything has to have a common theme, but they all have to be different. You can’t reuse the same plate throughout, so you have to really understand how everything’s going to flow. You have to understand how the recipes are going to be plated. It’s a lot of logistics.
Most of our collection is just acquisitions over 25 years. Flea markets, yard sales, auctions, New York City garbage. You’d be surprised what you find, especially in the better neighborhoods.
Our clients are creating the trends, so it’s really about watching what they’re pulling and listening to what their needs are. You can’t predict the trends, but for example, people are shooting holiday right now, so I know what holiday 2026 is going to look like. But every brand is different, so I don’t know if there’s anything particular in that sense.
Anyone can come in and rent, but it helps if you’re in the trade because you understand what goes into curating a collection like ours. Someone came to us wanting to decorate for a last minute Christmas party. We have a big collection of vintage Christmas decorations, but many of those things are irreplaceable. I had to be like, “Listen, I know you’re not in this business, but I want to let you know the replacement value for all this stuff is $6,000.” A party rental isn’t a closed set, so we have to make sure people take care of it. If something is obviously precious we won’t rent it for parties.
