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An old friend who is a top decorator stopped in at my booth at the Winter Show and I asked her whether she felt that antique furniture was making a comeback? Her response was interesting as it sheds a little light, at least for me, on what the current thought stream is concerning antique furniture. She said that her clients didn't want furniture that was either masculine or feminine, they wanted pieces that were neutral or leaning towards the feminine. That revelation says a lot about all sorts of things about the state of the market. Most significantly, it says to me that people both don't want the intrusion of something unique that might require explanation--unless it is something specific to their own experience--they want to keep things simple and not decorate with items that are, in a way, a statement.
A number of blogs ago, I talked about hiring a furniture maker to make something that reflected an owners life in some form or another. For example, I have been trying to sell for a client a small breakfront bookcase that was made for his grandfather, a British aeronautical designer from the 1930's who was involved in many of the designs of planes used in WWII. The bookcase, a breakfront, has carvings on the fronts of the doors of great moments in the history of aeronautical design, the most obvious one being the Montgolfier brothers balloon flight on Nov. 21, 1783. Owning a piece of furniture that is demonstratively historical requires explanation and that seems almost antithetical to how we live today. People just want to get on with life, more or less anonymously, they don't want others to focus on them. By the way, it was a gift for my friend's grandfather (from his Board, I presume) when he retired.
And yet, paradoxically, more than ever before, there are people showing off expensive brands most notably on their clothing and accessories, but also in myriad ways--Sotheby's has declared that selling brands will become a primary focus in their future--art and antiques taking second place to such goods. I feel that there is a kind of telltale elitism as well as a kind of tribalism in the desire for branded goods. I fully understand how enjoyable it is to have well made things whatever they may be, but brands are a subtle, or perhaps a not so subtle way of advertising your tribe and your success. Brands, because there are a lot of good ones, define and require no explanation unlike English furniture that was so popular in the 1980's and 90's--the mentality, for those who can afford it, has shifted to things that are less complex. It makes it easier to be part of an elite (as one might believe) clued in, crowd. Somehow, if I'm right, it seems lacking in something. Passion?
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