Houstonians have crowned their newest vintage vixen. From her rip-roaring Instagram reels and weekly live sales to her highly-coveted semi-annual Christmas drops where viewers vie for her curated collection of vintage baubles, bibelots, and bric-a-brac, Jesika Imana of Vibrant & Vintage has taken the Houston estate sale game by storm.
With over 62,000 Instagram followers, Imana’s bubbly personality — and best friend’s cool older sister vibes — intoxicates viewers while being whisked around town for behind the scenes first looks at the hottest estate sales in the city. Viewers also get vintage and antiques tours from prior sales as a sneak peek at what’s to come in the weekly Vibrant & Vintage Instagram live sale that takes place on Wednesday nights.
Imana’s quirky, sweet, and somewhat snarky repertoire offers a breath of fresh air in an arena that can be a little bit, well, dusty. The self-proclaimed estate “sailor” offers a glimpse into the life of a vintage dealer, while simultaneously dropping useful hints at where, when, and what to shop around town. So, how did she get here?
Interestingly, it was a New Year’s Eve party at a neighbor’s house that initially sparked the vintage retail flame. The party’s theme, “thrift store formal,” led Imana to her local thrift. While there, a pair of $2 vases piqued her interest. A quick online search pulled up an Etsy listing valuing each vase at $400. Imana was hooked.
Like many recent online businesses, Vibrant & Vintage was a “covid baby.” The Etsy store’s 2020-2021 origin story is not an unfamiliar one, but once Imana was able to save the equivalent of one year’s salary at her corporate job, she knew it was time to boogie. In May of 2025, Imana quit her job to focus on Vibrant & Vintage full time.
“It was kind of this inside thing in the beginning, just for some friends and followers,” explains Imana. “The estate sales I’m going to to pick out things for my shop. And nobody loves a gatekeeper. There is so much stuff out there. I could never buy everything. Let me show people where the good stuff is, or what the price point is like so people aren’t wasting their gas driving across town trying to decide if it’s something worth going to. It’s kind of this little inside thing for me to be able to tell people and talk to people about it. I started calling it estate ‘sailing,’ I’m an estate ‘sailor’ and that’s what we do—we go out and we pick through these sales.”
As a suburban wife and mother of two, Imana’s free time is highly valued. That being said, she needed to get the absolute most out of the time she took on Saturdays to shop estate sales. Unfortunately, she forfeited a lot of her time on flops, duds, and otherwise wasted endeavors.
“It wasn’t that great, or all the stuff I wanted was sold,” Imana laments about the early days of her adventures. “I remember leaving one [estate sale] and thinking: ‘I wish someone covered this kind of stuff. I wish I knew which ones to go to. I’m going to do it! I’m going to be the girl who takes one for the team and I’m going to start talking to nobody.’ I didn’t have a big account or following at the time, it was literally nobody. So I started covering something nobody wanted to talk about. And let me tell you, it was not cool for a long time.”
Imana shares that a few of her friends, family, and coworkers found her new hobby a little bizarre or macabre, and scoffed or recoiled at the notion of shopping “dead people’s things.” While that stigma is not entirely unearned, it’s important to note that a large share of estate sales are simply empty nesters preparing to downsize, or families relocating overseas. Regardless, Imana’s home — full of beautiful decor and cherished vintage finds — began speaking for itself.
“I do not have the cookie-cutter Target house,” says Imana. “People would come to my house and say: ‘Oh! Where did you get that, it’s so beautiful.’ At an estate sale — duh! Nobody else has these things and I just wanted to scream from the rooftops: ‘Hey! This is so awesome!’ Not only is it sustainable, it’s better for our wallets, there’s going to be decor that no one else has, and it’s really going to add something special to your homes.”
Over the past year, the Vibrant & Vintage shop-along reels have made Imana easily recognizable by fellow estate “sailors.” And it’s not only them who’ve taken notice. Recently, estate sale companies started offering Imana a first look at upcoming sales for her followers to enjoy. These behind-the-scenes glimpses into some of the best sales in the city quickly make the rounds on Instagram, whether through story posts, friends tagging one another in the comments, or being dropped right into the DMs — the girlies are making their post-Pilates plans in real time.
“I’ve gotten to know a lot of the estate sale companies throughout the years from just going and doing estate sale edits,” explains Imana. “They know I sort of advertise their sales if it’s one I feel like my audience would be genuinely interested in and enjoy. If it’s not one I would personally shop, then I don’t necessarily want to put that out there for everybody because I don’t want to waste anybody’s time going to something I would not love, too. It has to be one that fits the brand, fits the mission, and fits the look that Vibrant & Vintage and this curated vibe that we’ve established over the years fits, and a lot of them do.”
Wednesday Night Live
For those unable to make a sale, all is not lost. Vibrant & Vintage hosts live sales on Instagram every Wednesday night at 7:30 pm. However, during the dog days of summer, live sales fall to every other week. With the help of her husband, Imana puts on a showcase of her recent finds as vintage and antiques lovers rush to be the first to type “SOLD” in the comments.
“It’s been so much fun to do something like that, just out of the house. I don’t have a storefront, I don’t have a warehouse; I do it all out of my house,” she explains. “I will say, there are days I have to tell my neighbors they can’t come over because my house is looking a little extra cardboard chic. Other than that, it has been such an amazing opportunity to do something like that and raise my kids and be at home doing my own thing. It’s so much fun.”
As Imana’s popularity grows, two somewhat background characters have begun to share the limelight. Two — quite literal — house bunnies named “Dude” and “Dandy” are frequent guests on Vibrant & Vintage. The litter-box-trained mini-lops have garnered the attention of animal lovers far and wide. Their “government names” are “Dude-Bro” and “Dandy-Lion,” and were named by Imana’s teenage son — naturally.
“People love the bunnies,” says Imana. “They think they’re dogs. They’re the sweetest, cutest, fluffiest, loviest babies. I call them my emotional support bunnies. Even though they aren’t, I treat them as such. The house bunnies are a vibe.”
Her Latest Challenge
As “emotional support bunnies,” Dude and Dandy will soon have to clear their schedules. Over the last couple of weeks, the Vibrant & Vintage community has been on quite the roller coaster ride. Eagle-eyed fans noticed a small lump on Imana’s throat and encouraged her to have it checked out by her doctor. Neither her friends or family had ever noticed it, nor had she. Deciding to be better safe than sorry, a trip to the doctor confirmed that it was indeed thyroid cancer — caught early.
“I went from being fine a couple of weeks ago to having the internet diagnose me with cancer,” says Imana. “That’s a lot to wrap your mind around. I felt fine, I didn’t notice anything, and I can’t even begin to put into words how thankful I am for that. It’s just one of those ‘God wink’ things. It was the right video, the right angle, and the right people saw it. It’s still very new and very scary, but I know it’s a treatable and curable thing. Wrapping my head around it is like ‘oh, my, God.’”
Much to the surprise of the Vibrant & Vintage community, Imana has been all business as usual. After an emotional video sharing her diagnosis and thanking everyone for their support, estate sale preview videos popped up on the feed as if nothing ever happened. Health updates will come, but, for now, Imana is happy making jokes about getting to utilize her extensive vintage scarf collection.
“This is therapeutic and I love what I’m doing; I want to be here,” she says. “We’ve shared things and built up this community that’s appreciative and started caring and wanting to know what’s outside of the estate sales. Enough so that people felt comfortable messaging something like that, because — I’ll be honest — that’s not something I could message someone. I’m so grateful. I’ve got angels in the DMs, y’all! I’m beyond thankful for that.”
Imana's Estate Sale Tips
Luckily for Imana and her following, estate sales aren’t going anywhere. Now more than ever — as the baby boomer generation ages — experts have declared this the beginning of what is to be the “golden age of thrifting.” Lets face it, no other generation has had the access to fine furnishings, art, and collectibles as the baby boomers have had. The comfortable cost-of-living-to-income ratio of that generation, plus the quality of goods from their era, allowed for the creation of incredible private collections, whether intentional or not. So, is the estate sale craze a blip? Not even close.
“I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon,” says Imana. “I do think every year it gets bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, and I don’t see it slowing down. The secondhand retail space now is so huge. People are reaching for that stuff before they’re reaching for new now, and I love that. I don’t think it’s going to slow down anytime soon; in fact, I think it’s going to ramp up ten times more.”
Interested in joining an estate sale, but not sure where to begin? Imana shares her three best tips for shopping like a Vibrant & Vintage pro:
Skip the line
“What’s meant to be for you will find you. Unless there is something there that’s just an ‘I have to have this,’ you will find something at an estate sale. Everybody is going to notice something different. It’s hot, it’s humid, it’s nasty — just skip the line. Go on the last day and get a great deal, or go the second day and maybe get a discount. But whatever is meant to be for you will find you. If you stand in line and miss the one thing you were there for, how do you feel? It’s the worst feeling ever.”
Look at the listings
“Really zoom in on them. So often our brains are trained to look at estate sale listings like it’s Zillow, saying ‘I’d have never done the cabinets like that.’ Girl, we are not looking at the cabinets, we’re looking at the china in the cabinets — zoom in on it! Really study those listings and look beyond the house itself. Look at what’s in the house. If the house is your vibe you’re extremely likely to find something in there that may not have been photographed that you will love. If the vibe checks all the boxes, just go to that house and check it out. It’s totally worth it.”
Bring hand sanitizer
“The best sales you’re going to dig at. Be patient, not every estate sale company is the same. People will find that they prefer to shop certain companies over others. Whether it’s their price point, or the kinds of houses that they’re getting, there are so many different factors from one company to the next. Find one that meshes well with you. Find four or five companies that are tried and true and know what to expect; you can prepare a little better for it."
Tune in at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, July 22 for the next Vibrant & Vintage live sale, or shop online anytime.
Courtesy of Vibrant & Vintage
Jesika Imana of Vibrant & Vintage hosts live sales on Instagram every Wednesday night.
