Vintage Furniture Vancouver

Antiques and Interiors for 2018

According to some of the top designers in the world Antiques are becoming more popular than ever before.  There’s been a resurgence in the so called ‘brown furniture’ meaning such styles as Victorian, Georgian, as well as the classic French styles.

Why, because people are becoming a little bored with the overabundance of mass produced rubbish that not only disposable but detrimental to the environment.

Designers are anchoring modern looks with a fabulous antique to give the look charm and focus that might otherwise be lost in a monochromatic design.

According to Mark Hill from Designcurial in London

‘The only rule for 2018 is that all rules are off,” reckons Mark Hill, fellow author and another expert on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. “We buy antiques today because they appeal immediately to our eyes and hearts, and then they enrich our minds.  Before, interiors were strictly defined – from the Georgian dining room to the ubiquitous ‘shabby chic’ French country look.”

What exactly does this mean for interior design? “Eclecticism,” Mark argues, “is the new minimalism – mixing and matching seemingly disparate pieces together to build a unique and individual look that defines you. Quirky is cool.  1970s Italian goblets on a sideboard from the 1790s?   A collection of Victorian transfer-printed and guilt plates arranged asymmetrically on a stark chalk-white wall?  Why not?”

Antique Warehouse carries an extensive collection of french, england and belgium antiques and ships to the USA and worldwide.  Visit our website for a full list of our current french antique inventory.

Mark Hill, Antique and Collectable Expert, formerly of Sotheby’s and Bonhams.

Then again, he does see some trends coming through in 2018 in this new world where there are ‘no rules’. “Bold forms, or richness in terms of colour and pattern, layered against a strong colour, are on trend.  Also, watch out for the return of what is inadequately descried as ‘brown furniture’.  I’m seeing more and more buyers returning to Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian furniture”.

“There’s also a rise in interest in pieces that show the hand of the craftsman,” he continues, giving the examples of a “sparkling cut glass vase, or a wonderfully weathered piece of folk art.  Our eyes have been assailed for too long with mass-produced, machine-made rubbish lacking in soul!”

We couldn’t agree more. We’ve seen a rise in popularity that’s increasing globally. In fact, it’s more difficult then ever to source great pieces at formerly reasonable prices.

Here at the Antique Warehouse we’re shipping more and more to the four corners of the world than ever before.

Antique Warehouse carries an extensive collection of french, england and belgium antiques and ships to the USA and worldwide.  Visit our website for a full list of our current french antique inventory.

Old Georgian Home Wood World Globes Study Antique

But this new trend is hardly new from where we stand.  We’ve seen this going on here at the Antique Warehouse for the past few years. Good stand alone pieces with quality and substance are always in demand. We curate our collection carefully based on this.

Thanks for reading.

Mark LaFleur

http://www.antiquewarehouse.ca

 

 

 

For all you oddball collectable collectors out there!

Collectables and Antiques

Hi Everyone,

It’s been some time since I posted on my blog, but I am on vacation and now have some free time. I came across an article by one of my favourite blogs by Vanessa AKA  Messy Nessy, A London born millennial and her partner (chief millennial technical expert she lovingly refers to as elf ) both young and pretty and with a great pulse on Paris.  One of her latest posts was about the oldest auction house in the world known as the Dorotheum, in Vienna.  Vanessa referred to her blog as Frankensteins auction, but in fact it had noting to do with the real Dr. Frankenstein.

The Dorotheum, one of Viennas oldest auction houses is auctioning off some of the most bizarre of the bizarrest items of curiosities. Everything from turn of the century phones to a rare navicular naventiis.

Below you’ll see some unusual but not terribly disturbing images of things you may just take a fancy for. Bidding can be done online and shipment of one article is possible from this auction house.

Consult with the Dorotheum for any additional information.

Collectables and Antiques

Open Heart Human Model starting at 150E

Collectables and Antiques

A Navicula de Venetiis,  or ‘little ship of Venice’, is a very rare form of sundial. It was developed in Europe in the Middle Ages, though it is possible that its origins were Arabic. Starting bid 10,000E

Collectables and Antiques

1845 Celestial Globe by Franz Leopold Schöninger. Opening price 1500 €

Collectables and Antiques

A Paris turn of the century Stereoscope with images of Paris. The quality of the images on these is clear and fascinating giving the viewer a glimpse of the old past of French and Parisian life. Stereoscope and image viewer “Souvenir de Paris”. Opening price 300 €

Collectables and Antiques

A c. 1890 Jan Felkl & Son Tellurian. Opening price 1,500 €

Collectables and Antiques

An early mechanical dress form. C.1900 Opening bid 1000E

Collectables and Antiques

Economic Microscope by R. & J. Beck. Opening price 300 €

Collectables and Antiques

Three 19th century Apothecary travelling chests. Opening price 450 €

Collectables and Antiques

A mid 20th century distillation apparatus Model. Opening price 850 €

Collectables and Antiques

A Kelvin Hughes Star Globe. Opening price 400 €

 

Collectables and Antiques

A c. 1900 Ericsson Telephone. Opening price 600 €

Thanks for reading.

Mark LaFleur

 

 

 

 

Flying Water Taxi’s for Paris?

If this isn’t the coolest thing ever, I really don’t know what is. And of course it’s started in France. Paris actually.

This summer a fleet of George Jetson like water taxis will be unleashed to the public and will jet up and down the Seine.
What fun!

Think Uber but as a boat which hovers above the water– so basically, a flying boat taxi, right along the Paris Seine River..

French Antiques
Alain Thébault and Anders Bringdal, who together broke the record for speed on a flying sailboat that they designed back in 2009, created these futuristic electric-powered water taxis which go by the name of “Sea Bubbles”. Although, to me they kind of look like weird little bug robots…

French Antiques

Each shuttle will carry 5 people, including a pilot (until regulations change to allow self-driving models)
They will be used with an application similar to Uber and cost no more than €10 a ride
You’ll able to summon them to specially-designed docks which will also serve as charging stations
They will be zero emission and eco-friendly, built with biodegradable material
They’ll be silent and generate no waves
They will hover a few inches above water, travelling at a maximum speed of 30km imposed by the city (about the speed of going downhill on a bicycle).

French Antiques

Interior Shot

The bubbles have gained support from the controversial Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who is passionate to ensure that the city cuts down on pollution and sets eco-efficient standards for the rest of the world.

The first tests for the Sea Bubbles are planned to commence June 14th on the Seine and rumour has it that if all goes well, they will be launched as a permanent form of transport next Spring.

French Antiques

Lets go to Paris and jet along the Seine. I can’t think of anything more I’d rather do.

Cheers,

Mark

La Samaritane Scheduled to Reopen

For years, one of the world’s most iconic and historic department stores sat empty along the banks of the Seine in Paris; an imposing ghostly shell of former retail splendour, a giant sleeping elephant in the room occupying prime real estate in the heart of the city.

When I heard that renovation works were finally set to begin again after numerous false starts and lengthy delays I was pleased. It was a beautiful building that deserved ressurection.

French Antique Furniture

The Art Nouveau Splendor Palace.

I remember shopping at the Samaritaine before it closed. It had grown old and dingy even then, but it did have everything and anything. I think I was looking for fabric or something. When I learned the icon of Parisian shopping was closing it confirmed the sad state of trying to run a business under the current bureaucratic nightmare of a government in France. I was pleased to learn it was reopening under the umbrella of the fashion giant LVMH, spearheaded by French billionaire Bernard Arnault. (He owns most of the fashion houses in Europe now, including Dior, Louis Vuitton, Celine and too many to list). At least Arnault knows how to operate under the system that’s bleeding the country dry and still make money.

French Antique Furniture

Mon. Arnault

The origins of La Samaritaine is another rags to riches story. The founder Ernest Cognacq, started out his career selling ties under a red umbrella on the Pont Neuf, until 1869, when he heard about a space for let in a petite room next to a café he frequented on the nearby Rue de la Monnaie. He took the offer, opened a small clothing boutique and recruited his wife as his first employee, who had been working as a saleswoman in the confectionary aisles at Le Bon Marché. I wonder if the couple knew then that the famous department store where she left her job would come to be their greatest competitor.

French Antique Furniture
By the dawn of the twentieth century, just thirty years on from Cognacq’s humble beginnings as a smalltime tradesman on the Seine, the couple had expanded their enterprise, giving birth to the large edifice seen today, the “Grands Magasins de La Samaritaine”.

French Antique Furniture
A clever and ambitious businessman, he steadily acquired neighbouring buildings around him and soon enough, entire city blocks were being reworked and reconstructed to make space for his growing empire.

French Antique Furniture
La Samaritaine was an art nouveau palace of retail, the ideally organised and managed department store, arranged as a collection of individually owned stores, each managed by “petits patrons” that operated in harmony but autonomously.

French Antique Furniture
Cognacq used revolutionary marketing techniques, attracting the crowds with “deal of the day” and started doing what might seem obvious to us today– price-labelling the items.

French Antique Furniture

La Samaritaine became Paris’ leading department store and was at its peak during the interwar period, when nearly 20,000 people were under its employ.

French Antique Furniture
It occupied four buildings between the river and the rue de Rivoli, living up to the famous slogan later coined for the department store; “On trouve tout à la Samaritaine” – One can find everything in La Samaritaine.”

French Antique Furniture
There was even a gymnasium and a nursery. That’s something you won’t find in the chic Vancouver ‘Nordstroms’!

French Antique Furniture
I will look forward to the opening of the new Samaratine. They promise to leave all the Art Nouveau splendor that went into building the original palace of luxury shopping. Maybe it will be that way again maybe it won’t. We’ll see now won’t we.

Cheers,

Mark

How Antiques Amp Up a Contemporary Space.

This week on the premier website 1 Dibs, an article was published “How Antiques Amp Up a Contemporary Space”. I’ve pulled the article and reposted on my website. The writer is Cara Greenberg and here is her article below. But I’ve been saying this for years now, and really any good interior designer or decorator already knows this.

How Antiques Amp Up a Contemporary Space.
By Cara Greenberg.

Antiques add drama — and ­more than a little gravitas — to contemporary interiors. Top talents reveal how they pull off the balancing act.

Call it the X factor: the unexpected juxtaposition of decorative elements that lifts a contemporary interior out of the ordinary and makes people sit up and take notice. Often, it’s the insertion of one or more well-chosen antiques, thoughtfully deployed against the clean lines of contemporary furnishings, that makes the whole setting pop. “Antiques are the element of surprise in a contemporary space,” says Los Angeles– and New York–based interior designer Alexandra Loew.

Alexandra Lowe

Alexandra Lowe

“Antiques are a great foil to chic-but-clinical newness,” is how James “Ford” Huniford, of Huniford Design Studio in New York’s Greenwich Village, puts it. “They can keep a contemporary interior from looking like a sterile showroom.”

James Huniford

James Huniford

It wasn’t until the last few decades of the 20th century that mixing styles and periods became acceptable, and then de rigueur. Prior to that, people lived with whatever was, for them, modern in its truest sense — “of the moment,” whether the moment was Louis XIV, Colonial or high Victorian. The early 20th century saw revivals of classical styles, the birth of the modernist movement and the swoops and amoeboid shapes of the immediate postwar years. By the 1960s, when the typical contemporary room was white and spare, with furnishings predicated on the right angle, some design mavericks began bringing in Tiffany lamps and bentwood rockers to leaven the mix.

Antique Accessories

This lovely Louis XVI Console is just at home in a contemporary setting as in a classic. Only this one was produced in France and has an enduring look and quality that will last for decades.

Today, with websites making global shopping possible, the whole of decorative-arts history is fair game for those seeking to create interesting interiors, which can incorporate every style and period from antiquity to the present day. But a delicate balancing act is required. Many top designers selectively use antiques in otherwise contemporary settings to add drama and enliven their schemes. Examples of this are located on our ‘inspiration’ page of our website.

Antique Accessories

Louis XVI chairs like these were sold by us to Interior Decorator Superstar Nate Berkus who used them in one of his design projects just this past year.

Antique Accessories

I love the use of the bureau bookcase and the 60’s maison bague style table in this modern bathroom.

Antique Accessories

This beautiful French Farm table makes this contemporary space look simple and elegant.

So you have it. Mix an antique for drama and style. But you and I already knew that-

Thanks for reading!

Mark LaFleur
226 SW Marine Drive,
Vancouver, B.C.
Please visit our website

We ship worldwide.

Club Michou, Paris.

Mention Chez Michou to any Parisian and they all know it. It’s been around since the swinging 60’s when it was hip and impossible to get into. The second night after we arrived my best friend Simon said “Great you’re here..we’re going to Chez Michou and you must come…I’ll get you some tickets” At 150E a ticket he was being most generous. (I did offer to pay but he refused.)

Now Chez Michou is really nothing more than a crowded, impossible to get into, female impersonator club. The show was amazing, the food, well, mediochre at best. But then again, it is a club, not a restaraunt.

 Antique French Furniture

Club Michou, Paris legend since the 1960’s. It was completely packed on the Monday night we went.

Club Michou requires months in advance for reservations. It’s been like that for decades. So to get in last minute was something I wouldn’t pass on. I turned to my Nephew and asked him if he packed a jacket for going out.

“No” he said.

“Well” I said “Lets go shopping.”

I bought him a new sports jacket (short cropped very tight at the waist that can only be worn by 22 year olds with 18″ waists) shirt, pants, shoes, and flew him down to a great salon I knew to get his hair ‘Parisianized’. I told him just sit back relax! They know what they’re doing. They trimmed his beard (thank God) and redid his hair.

He’s such a good kid he listened to his uncle Mark and within minutes he was ‘Voila un Parisian’. The cut was beautiful, he looked totally French and I was completely satisfied with my creation. I was a stylist years ago when I was very young. I worked on the lead actor of the dreadful movie that has now has a cult following “The Evil Dead”. My long time New York friend, Lauren was the publicist and she asked me if I’d style the lead actor. We now laugh at the ‘popularity’ of this movie and frankly are slightly embarrassed we had anything to do with it.

 Antique French Furniture
Anyway, by 8 we were at my friend Simons for champagne and appetizers and waiting for a private black van to take us to one of the most legendary clubs in Paris. The private black Mercedes arrived, packed us in, and up we went to the Montmartre district of Paris. We entered the club without waiting a second, (there was a line) and were greeted by charming albeit half drag queen, and shown to Michou’s table for a hello. We couldn’t help noticing that every celebrity’s photo from the 1960’s to now were covering the walls.

Michou immediately insisted we have a photo taken with him by his photographers. We found out later they were 20E a piece and it was nothing about being special.

 

 Antique French Furniture

MIchou with the fabulous Regine, famous for her hip nightclubs of the 80’s.

 Antique French Furniture

Our ‘family’ portrait with Jackson and I in the middle standing next to Julie, Stany, The bottom row is their daughter Ana Kim, Mother Aimee, Michou, Simon and Gabrielle.

 

 Antique French Furniture

These two were there that night.

Don’t even think of getting out of Michou until way past 1 am. Their impersonations of Grace Jones, and Celine Dion sent shivers from the realism of the production. Jackson and I didn’t get home until past 3 and we had to be out the door by 9 am. That my friends what being Parisian is all about. Party all night, and work (for part of the day anyway).

 

 Antique French Furniture

Amazing Celine Dion impersonation, if you like Celine that is. They all adore her in Paris.

The club is bright red inside and stays that way until you leave.

 Antique French Furniture

Chez Michou is cramped, small inside, and the food was not that great. But the floorshow was amazing. When Grace Jones came on I thought I was dreaming. (or having a nightmare)

In any event, I hope you enjoyed this blog. Chez Michou is a fun place but I don’t know that it’s for everyone. The performers spoke in nothing but French so much of it was lost as they spoke in slang and very quickly

In any event, I want to thank my friend Simon and Julie for inviting us. We had a truly Parisian Experience.

Thanks

 Antique French Furniture

See you next week!

Should I Reupholster or Buy a New Sofa?

That all depends if you purchased a quality sofa to begin with!

According to Suzanne Dimma, editor in chief of House and Home Magazine, investing in the best sofa you can is her advice. If you invest early in the best, a sofa can be recovered for years and years to come.

 

Suzanne Dimma of House and Home Magazine

Suzanne Dimma of House and Home Magazine

“Invest in the best and start early. I still have the same sofa I bought for my first house. I chose one that was well built and the design I knew would be timeless. I’ve even had it re-upholstered time and time again, and still love it” says the doyenne of style.

If your sofa wasn’t all that great to begin with, consider buying a vintage or antique piece. The quality (particularly the European made) is usually superior to anything made today. From the construction, to the detailing, vintage pieces excel in almost every area. And lets face it, when you recover, you get exactly what you want. So start with good bones, and consider a vintage or antique piece.

How much fabric will you need? Here’s a guide below that can help you predetermine that.

A sofa from 76″ – 84″ Wide will need approximately 16 – 20 yards of fabric.

Classic Louis XVI French made sofa

This Classic Louis XVI French made sofa is timeless in design and when recovered will last for years and years to come. C.1930, the detailing is gorgeous (something you won’t find on a new piece) and will cost less than a new sofa. This piece will probably need around 12 – 15 yards of fabric.

 

Elegant and modern fabric on a classic Louis XVI Settee

Imagine this lovely fabric on this classic Louis XVI Settee. Elegant and modern.

For chairs, here’s some quick figures to help you out.

A wing back French Louis XVI style chair

A wing back like this French Louis XVI style chair will require about 6 – 7 yards.

 

French 20th Century Louis XVI Style Armchair

This chair, while almost 60 years old is a style that’s copied and manufactured today. You can buy this chair for less than $500! It will take probably 5 – 6 yards.

 

French Empire Chairs C.1800.

One of the French Empire Chairs C.1800 will require 4 yards. Times that by 2 for the pair. They’ve last over 150 years now. They’ll be good to go for another 150.

(Everything above is available at the Antique Warehouse). If you don’t see what you’re looking for, remember not everything in our 12,000 sq.ft. store is online. You can also sign up for our weekly acquisitions. You’ll never know what’s coming down the pike. This is Mark LaFleur signing off from beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia.

Have fun!