The antiques shop - what was the meaning of that?

"What was the purpose of this entire antiques shop business?"

I don't want to pretend I have a great grasp on this question, but I think the shop has a "purpose" in at least a few ways.

One way is that there is a theme running through Antonioni that shows his fascination with the abstract meaning of things, or reification in the sense of Gestalt. Antique shops on simple level are nothing other than even a random collection of things put in one place, removed obviously not only in the physical sense from where they were before, but by their nature as antiques also removed from their prior use and purpose.

But they are also retail stores, selling items for hopefully a profit, and of course the unfriendly old man is purposely portrayed as someone who is not the least bit interested, it seems, in accomplishing that task. What then is the store there for? The return visit finds the young woman interested in selling. I am not sure other than providing a tension between the two visits this distinction between the two is meant to have. But at a minimum it does draw attention to what is being sold. Antiques are not the only objects, of course, that have an abstract content, but the nature of antiques makes clear that they are examples of reification. (Perhaps this is another if concededly subtle example of Antonioni viewing the economic context to explore social distancing and alienation.)

On another level the search for the propeller is imbued with meaning, but meaning of what? We later assume (as perhaps some viewers do all along) that the propeller is intended as a prop in a photo shoot. Once again, removed from its original purpose, then viewed as an antique, then again changing its "meaning" to become a prop in a photo. In short the meaning of the propeller is shown to change as the context changes.

And of course on the obvious level the shop serves the narrative purpose of bringing Thomas to the vicinity of the park. But it does more than that, since we move from, and compare, the shop where the nature of things has been reified to the park. Parks by their nature are nature made over, altered, by man. The natural element both remains and is transformed. And of course this is where it becomes clear how central the theme of perception and how it affects one's understanding of reality is made clear.

The specific mention of going to Nepal I think is one Thomas makes as part of his overall alienation from his own life. He in effect assumes that she might be interested in leaving her current situation as well. There is also I think an element of flirtation here, and some implication that he might well go with her if she did, or expressed an interest in going. But nothing comes of that. (Nepal by then also had an image of the exotic and remote but also within the then budding hippie orientation as a particularly hip kind of exotic place.)

Add it all up and I think you have the antique shop bringing up the issue of the meaning of things, as perceived, with the shop serving both the narrative function identified and also as a comparator to the meaning of the park as a man altered version of nature, in turn introducing directly the theme of perception as it arises in connection with what Thomas and his camera see.