Looking at my blog entries for the last several weeks, the focus, or should I say sub-focus, well, let’s say that some significant emphasis has been placed on the interior design trade. Truly, with our antiques show experience, knowing- and yes, this sounds tiresome and will leave the subject alone for at least a week- the best shows are designer led and designer driven. Yesterday, for example, we had a real up-and-comer visit our galleries, Santa Monica-based designer Jeffrey Alan Marks. 
His visit was a follow-on from his visit to our show booth a couple of weeks ago in Los Angeles, and, we all hope, this marks the beginning of an ongoing collaboration.
Upon our initial opening six years ago, our galleries focused (that word again! What a fixation on optics- I must have been frightened at birth by an optometrist) on the collector community. And why not? That was our experience in London, where our entire effort was taken up by likeminded collectors- ‘like minded’, in that our sales were limited to those people who, upon seeing something appealing in our own home, would charge us to find a similar object and commit to purchase it if we did. To this very day, we continue to use our own home as adjunct gallery space, typically featuring our collection of British modernist art and, disparate as it might sound, a rotating exhibit of our collection of Japanese woodblock prints. Interestingly, as much as our public face is pointed toward the design community, our private one continues to be almost exclusively directed toward the collector. While our galleries at Jackson Square are available to the design trade, our own home, just as it was in London, seems only to be the province of the collector.
This isn’t too surprising, as our home is something of a haven for intimacy. As Keith and I started out as collectors, we seem, naturally enough, to have a particular affinity for other collectors, and they with us. Mind you, we’ve forged some terrific alliances with a number of interior designers, but none of those acquaintances seem to be of the same nature as collector clients most of whom we would count, and they us, as friends.
It’s interesting, as much time as we spend courting designer business, we’ve begun doing this not entirely of our own volition, but in response to the inexorable movement of our business within the ambit of the design world. The prevailing wisdom is that, with a dearth of time, individuals who would love to develop a level of connoisseurship about the sort of material we offer, simply don’t have the time to do so. These erstwhile connoisseurs, then, find the interior designer is able to do at least part of what they have not the opportunity to do for themselves.
With all that, I have to say, our largest sales this year have been to collectors, and, given who some of these people are, it does however challenge the notion that high profile folk don’t have the time to become connoisseurs. My mother always told me that you find time to do the things you really want, and so it is with some of our better collector clients, a couple of whom have extraordinary demands on their time. One of them, who was kind enough to visit us at the Los Angeles show, is a fashion maven whose own line of couture has an international reach, with boutiques all over the world. Another valued client is one of the nation’s senior bankers who visits us on nearly every trip he makes to the coast. If these people don’t have demands on their time, who then does? Mind you, we make a point of calling on these people at their own homes from time to time. Frankly, this was one of Joseph Duveen’s favorite things to do, and it is ours, as well. Sorry to so truncate, but tomorrow, some additional thoughts on collectors.