Showing posts with label
The Decorative Antiques & Textile Fair.
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Showing posts with label
The Decorative Antiques & Textile Fair.
Show all posts
This year marks The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair's 30th Birthday, launched by Patricia Harvey, and which has made Battersea Park its home since 1997. We are relatively new converts but it is a fixture in our calendar along with every discerning interior designer and collector around the capital. The thrice-yearly event opened its doors for autumn purchases on Tuesday and runs until the end of the weekend. On our walkabout we noticed delicious pieces of art, an amazing pair of mid-century Czech bookshelves and a ravishingly-red Chinese console table. I wore a favourite vintage velvet jacket, last seen in 'Red on Red', a pair of Armani navy pinstripes (previous outing: The only real adventure is me...) with a simple white linen shirt, neon-pink Miss Sixty belt, satin wedges by Castañer, and an Italian leather bag from Brixton Village Market.
Marking the end of this Indian summer and heralding the new season, The Autumn Decorative Fair opened its doors earlier this week in Battersea Park for a six-day-stay until the end of the weekend. With more than 140 exhibitors, delights ranged from fine furniture to folk art, and a foyer full of original fairground and circus artefacts. I opted for a truly vintage look and wore one of my best one-offs: a jewel-green dress, from the '40s, with jazzy floral inserts. It is a real hand-made piece and comes with a lovely history. Purchased from a girlfriend, it was made by her great-grandmother who took on the mantle of 'family' dress-maker. Happily it fits me - as if I was one of the family! And it is accessorised with my charming Hong Kong '50s clutch, bought earlier this summer at Lewes Antiques Centre. My dress was remarked upon by several of the exhibitors including Josephine Ryan, whose pair of magnificent 19th century Italian 'Wonderland' chairs, would be worthy of any Alice, predisposed to curlicues. Best chairs in show! The dress also looked rather glamorous against the rough-hewn hessian, larger-than-life figures at La Place Antiques, which also had some lovely Gustavian chairs. Desirable fare included a 'men-sized' sofa at Drennan, where big is always beautiful; the coral and cabinets at Martin D. Johnson Antiques; the pretty French bateau at Covelli Tennant; and Gallic furniture aplenty at French Country Living Antiques; and pretty horses - the larger one, an exceptional example from the 1880s, by Orton & Spooner. I went back to the fair on Sunday in my casuals: a Zara knit and Gap skinnies and found a Victorian chair, with Hungarian folk pieces and edged in orange, to try out at Covelli Tennant. And the craziest bag - a crayfish-shaped basket from '50s America - at Katheleys. Truly out there... in the ocean of eccentricity!
January is a fine month for inspiration: to be found on every stand at the Winter Decorative Fair which opened on Tuesday in Battersea Park. The thrice-yearly event gathers the great and the good for an extravaganza of extraordinary covetables - from the skeleton of a Bengal tigress, lightly gilded and cased in a former V&A vitrine (stand 118) where Alex MacArthur's theme is 'gold, bling and bone', to Drennan Edinburgh's ornately carved early Victorian table, topped by the loveliest Irish green marble, from Connemara - a real showpiece at stand 12. The six-day shopping event closes on Sunday evening. You can always pencil in your next spree, for Spring, towards the end of April. Our last visits can be found at 'The Decorative Fair' or 'Decoratively Battersea'.
It is once again that time of year: a trip to The Decorative Antiques & Textile Fair, in Battersea Park. The thrice-yearly event is always a feast for the discerning decorator looking to source unusual English and European antiques and collectables. On my last visit, in January, I wore this snugly sophisticated '60s faux-fur and leather navy coat from vintage store, Cornucopia, in Pimlico. Gerry's wonderful emporium closed down a few years ago on Tachbrook Street, but all my purchases are certainly going strong. A suitably decorative mini-skirt from Paul Smith adds interest, whilst a simple silk shirt from Adolfo Dominguez enriches the colour, in coat and vintage bag, as does the mustard fur. The hand-made earrings on wood are part of The Start Collection from Frase Design, a Sussex-based enterprise whose inspiration is taken from great works of art. This pair comprises details taken from a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder.
http://www.decorativefair.com/
http://www.paulsmith.co.uk/uk-en/shop/
http://www.adolfodominguez.com/uk/
http://www.frasedesign.com/category.php?id_category=1
http://www.frasedesign.com/product.php?id_product=55
