Linda Zukas called her September edition of the Antique Textiles and Vintage Fashions Show & Sale “Marvelous!” For more than 18 years, the three-times-yearly event has been a sellout for exhibitor space, with great crowds supporting the exhibiting trade.
The dealers generally echoed Zukas’s one-word description with their sales reports for the day. Conducted on Labor Day, September 1, at the Sturbridge Host Hotel and Conference Center, the event kicked off Brimfield Week.
Martha Perkins, Perkins and Menson in Ashby, Mass., sold well, with quilts and coverlets the principal ingredient in her inventory.
Quilts and coverlets were made as a craft and folk art form, not in factories, so their materials tended to be whatever was available and design stemmed from the creativity of their makers. Labors of Love, the New York City antiques collection and business of June Lury, had several hanging in her share of the exhibit hall. The most striking example she offered was made by English soldiers on ships as they sailed home from the Crimean War, circa 1856. The material they used was old woolen uniforms of many colors, cut into small patches, then stitched together in a pattern of their own design.
Joe and Mary Koval, Schellsburg, Penn., make their inventory a very large collection of early cotton quilts.
Actor William Sadler and his wife, Marni Bakst, were kidding around in Lucia Hollon’s booth while buying some of the textiles Bakst collects and trades on her website. Sadler has acted in many movies, including The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile and he has an HBO series coming up, The Last of the Ninth . Hollon is a regular at the show with vintage fashions from her South Weymouth, Mass., inventory.
Zukas said the show was featured in a magazine article in Japan about two years ago and since then she has had a great many Japanese visitors. This year, she even had some Japanese exhibitors as a result of the publicity the show has been getting there. Their interest has been in vintage American fashion, especially the “dress up” pieces from the middle of the Twentieth Century, which in many cases they buy to take back to Japan to copy in making new garments.
Rambling Rose has had the first display in the exhibition hall for many years, featuring vintage fashions. This Frederick, Md., dealer had a variety of ladies covers, capes and shawls from the Twentieth Century hanging on forms with a most elegant appeal. Poppet from New York City was another exhibitor with exotic gowns and party outfits from the same time period.
Victoriana, Connie Marks, proprietor, of Rocky Point, N.C., also arranged a collection of early garments, but, as the business name implies, from the earlier time period. This collection included many children’s garments, very elegant things, such as day dresses for little girls, Christening outfits and some play outfits.
Even earlier were the garments offered by Maureen Mayer from New Canaan, Conn., including Eighteenth Century garments. One was a silk brocade ladies dress at $4,500 and the other a man’s waistcoat, also in silk, for $8,500.
Magi Motola offered garments and antique window treatments. Maria Niforos collects in Europe and England, where she lives. Her collection is primarily old lace, and she can be found on Portobello Road on most Saturdays from September to May.
Things for the seamstress to use in her work are a large part of the show inventory for Leesport, Penn., dealer Kim Kirker. Her sales included a group of vegetables †an eggplant, a lemon, a pear and an apple, but not the edible kind. Hers were all handmade pin cushions.
There are many dealers whose offerings, while not just clothing or yard goods, seemed to fit right into the mixture. Susan Voake, Norwich, Vt., collects valentines and vintage cards. Bif Martin of Emmons and Martin, Essex, Mass., was selling a collection of fine household objects designed by Christopher Dresser in the late Nineteenth Century. Susan Gippen, Akron, Ohio, showed her collection of Kewpie dolls. The show even included folk art in textiles from the collection of Michael Malce and Joley Kelter of Bridgehampton, N.Y.
Zukas’s next Antique Textiles and Vintage Fashions Show & Sale is set for May 11, followed by the two Mondays of Brimfield Weeks, July 13 and September 7. The email and phone numbers have also changed this year. They are ZukasTextileShow@maine.rr.com and 207-363-1320; the website is www.vintagefashionandtextileshow.com .
