Linda Zukas continued her long streak of successful Antique Textiles and Vintage Fashions Shows at the Sturbridge Host Hotel and Conference Center September 7. The halls of the site were sold out, with exhibiting dealers showing and selling their textiles and garments from days gone by.
Maria Niforos, an exhibitor from London, was offering early gowns and wedding dresses for the visiting crowds. Across the aisle, Cynthia VanDusen was showing her collection, which included fine embroidered silk table covers from her Coatesville, Penn., abode.
The Kovals have reduced the number of times they exhibit at shows, but Joe has to help Mary at this one †three times each year. From Schellsburg, Penn., her collection included an assortment of rag dolls and other toys. Zukas has been fostering this variety in the show to add to the visitors’ interest and keep them coming back for more. It seems to work; the Monday morning crowd was as good as ever, quickly filling the exhibit halls with active buyers.
New York dealers trading under the name Studio Messina were showing as their focal point a two-sided silk, hand embroidered table cover or shawl. Their advice on the piece was that it was made in either Portugal or Italy in the Seventeenth or Eighteenth Century, and worth more than the $850 asking price.
Victoria Rose Antiques was offering an extensive collection of vintage woman’s fashions, including several hundred pairs of shoes. The owner, Mary Matthews from Chestertown, Md., was selling well to both those who would use the garments and those who would copy them to manufacture more.
Earlier this year, Magi Motola offered a dress made from ping pong balls as her centerpiece. For this Labor Day holiday show, she was attracting attention with a vintage window treatment featuring swags and jabots on a heavy patterned fabric. Motola is also involved in a design school near her Warwick, R.I., home.
Mary Lotuff from Ware, Mass., was trying on a fur coat from New York exhibitor Steve Mohr of More and More. It would have been part of her wedding outfit, but it was too large and, in a practical moment, she felt it might be too warm for her October wedding.
Found as a piece made in Africa, Kelter Malce, Bridgehampton, N.Y., offered a banner celebrating a union between native Africans and their English teachers for $2,500.
Emmons & Martin Antiques, Essex, Mass., has been a regular at Zukas’s show for many years, well-known for its yard goods as well as objects finished in cloth. Kim Kirker, Leesport, Penn., brings a great variety of small antiques for women, including hats and purses.
Susan Parrish has been collecting for a long time, and has a wonderful variety of antiques she offers at the show. In back-to-back sales, she sold several Native American beaded pouches, a Taconic basket and a small white table drape. Susan, a New Yorker, said she was trying hard to reduce her collection, and obviously this show was working well for her.
Silvermine Antiques is Maureen Mayer’s business from New Canaan, Conn. Her collection included a waist coat from the Eighteenth Century, a dress or dressing gown from 1840 and a gentleman’s quilted robe, which she dated at 1890 and sold in the afternoon.
Lee Gamage, Cumberland, Maine, was having fun helping two women try on hats from his collection. But then he was not the only one having fun †this show is a fun event. The dealers were selling well, the customers were buying what suited their fancies and the show goes on and on year after year with a full house.
The show will happen again next year for the 20th year at the same site, on the Monday of Brimfield Week.
For additional information, www.vintagefashionandtextileshow.com or 207-363-1320.
