Author: Michael Chappell

The fortunes of Mallett’s, the venerable soon-to-be-former Bond Street firm, may not necessarily be a bellwether for the trade, but, as a public company, and so far as I know the only remaining publically held antiques dealer, its to-ing and fro-ing, financially and otherwise, are generally the stuff of media fodder, including my humble blog.

The move off Bond Street, arguably the most expensive shopping street in the world, is probably a matter in which Mallett’s has little choice, and, given the primo location opposite Sotheby’s and dead center between Oxford Street to the north and Piccadilly to the south, their leasehold has got to be about as desirable as any space on the planet. One wonders whether their space in New York on Madison Avenue won’t soon have another tenant.

No question, cheaper premises can always be found. With that, though, our own best promotion is our gallery space, located in an established antiques venue. Given, with an exorbitant increase in rents, Bond Street, as nearby Mount Street, is with each passing day less an art and antiques venue than it is a shopping parade for haute couture. Tragic that arts and antiques venues are being priced out. As our business is still high touch, so gallery premises in an established venue remain of paramount importance for the continuation of the trade. While the proper maintenance of a website is critical, it is only an adjunct to premises commensurate with the type of material on offer. With all that, in spite of the changing age demographic of the retail antiques buyer- which is, I might add the same demographic and often the same buyer for both contemporary and period material- the practice of, for want of a better term, ‘antique-ing’, by which I mean taking sufficient time to browse, making one’s way casually from gallery to gallery, is still the preferred method of shopping that is always, and I mean always precedent to making a purchase.

Apparently, Mallett’s is also looking to cut costs by reducing its participation at antiques fairs. Certainly, fairs participation is expensive and exhausting. The plain cost of the stand, plus kitting it out with décor, plus transporting one’s goods to and back from, and housing and feeding staff while at the fair. Keith McCullar and I generally work the fairs we participate in, and, trust me, it is hard to continue to stand upright at the conclusion of even a three-day fair. But, we’ve found that, next to premises, fair participation functions as an outstation of one’s gallery, and, in our strong markets, if we didn’t do fairs, we would have to go to the trouble of mounting our own trunk show. Does a show always result in good sales? Frankly, the answer is no. Not all fairs result in good at-show sales. However, we find that, at the end of the year, the more fairs we’ve done, the better our overall performance for the year will be. That said, we’ve found that fair participation is a poor method for market development. In fact, fairs we’ve dropped include some of the best attended fairs we’ve ever been involved in- but they were in locations where we had little penetration to begin with, and, consequently, fair attendance didn’t help us.

Of course, a number of arts and antiques dealers of Mallett’s stature participate in the world’s most exclusive- and expensive- fairs, and have been mainstays for decades. One wonders, moreover, how much continued participation is driven by actual commercial success, and how  much by ego- something on the order of feeling a need to be seen. Times being the way they are, none of us can now afford this particular conceit.

It’s been said before that access to Turner Classic Movies alone is worth the monthly cost of cable television. Frankly, I don’t know how many of my other cable channels even work, so infrequently are they accessed. If TCM didn’t work, I’d know it. My partner Keith McCullar is not such a fan, with his not so clever rejoinder ‘I don’t want to watch an old movie’ sounding even before we’ve settled on the sofa. He is, of course, a philistine, and, as the primary possessor of taste, I generally don’t pay too much attention to him.

Away as he was for a couple of days, I watched without molestation a near surfeit of TCM, including, rapture, back to back showings of A Star is Born (1937 version) and All About Eve. Both winners of lots of awards, I don’t really need to reprise much in terms of cast or story-line for either film. Or do I? For those of you that find that I do, you have doubtless stumbled on to the wrong website. Shades of Addison DeWitt; as with Bette Davis, George Sanders never looked lovelier.

Having watched both movies so often, I now give myself the pleasure of watching for other things- background action, for instance, like the crowds reaction to Norman Maine getting beaten up by Libby in the bar at Santa Anita racecourse, or bits of business like Max Fabian belching from the bicarb he’s just been given by Margo Channing.

What I also spend time looking at is set decoration. Not surprising, given my avocation, but what continues to surprise is how effective decoration is in establishing a mise-en-scène, the background, then, making the action as believable, believe me, as the dialog and its delivery. Mr. Selznick and Mr. Zanuck, your money was well spent.

What’s more, the decoration can function to either make the movie a period piece, inadvertently, or render it timeless. I don’t know who David O Selznick employed with such aplomb to accomplish both the exquisite streamlined interiors of Oliver Niles’ office as well as the wonderful Hollywood Regency interior of Norman Maine’s beach house, but the effect, over 70 years on, hardly seems dated. As well, the interior of Margo Channing’s New York townhouse, from the outsized, quilted chintz in her bedroom headboard, to the boldly carved commode beneath the Toulouse-Lautrec poster in her drawing room, still evoke the quintessence of sophistication. What else could they have drunk there but martinis? George Davis won an Oscar for creating this cocktail-drinking haven where one could picture oneself looking forward with joy to what Bette Davis promised would be a bumpy night.

Easing into the last week of January we are pleased to see a bit of collector and designer activity. In fact, year on year, our gallery traffic for the month is, to a person, exactly what it was last year. Further, the break down is split about equally, designer and private collector. Although rainy and gloomy today in San Francisco, our dispositions are much sunnier than they were a few weeks ago.

While we enjoy our private collector business, it seems to me a better bellwether for our industry is activity associated with interior designers. Design projects always include more than just furniture purchases, so, presumably, when we see the designer, their virtual shopping basket includes paint, wall coverings, window treatments, and various other inputs, not to mention construction activity. So, in the main, when we see interior designers designing, it is akin to the flowers in spring, and we are, consequently, optimistic about future business. Clients do not spend money on design fees, and designers, like the rest of us, are disinclined to work- and shopping for antiques is work- unless a payday is in the offing.

With a mention of construction activity, I’ve tried to chase down the contractor we use from time to time and found him, surprisingly, busy, but not with new construction. He told me, though, that he has all the remodels he can handle.

So, what’s with all this? From the Chappell & McCullar first-three weeks in January paradigm can we determine any economic portends? I don’t remember much about my three semester unit class in statistics, but it is doubtful we’ve got enough data, or sufficiently organized our model, to make any projections. Let me repeat, though, our previously expressed notion of what’s going on. What we found in 2008, and something discussed in earlier blogs, was that those people who often ‘churn’ their homes were, the result of the downturn in the residential housing market, staying put. And, staying put, have often times decided to ‘nest’, adding inputs- artwork, antiques, and other movables- that they might not have acquired if the home itself was just merchandise with no long term plan of occupation, beyond the time it took for the paint to dry.

It appears, at least in the housing field, that this year has not so far seen the market revivify, and with prices closer to a nadir than the zenith, the nesting phenomenon might be expected to continue. While we’ve loved selling pieces of furniture in multiples for large projects, we are content, for the moment, to assist our good design and collector clients with the occasional single accent piece.

The current issue of the Antiques Trade Gazette has a feature article discussing the now former practice of auction houses providing consignors of stellar lots guaranteed minimums. In earlier blogs, I’ve mentioned how the major houses have lost their shirts in this practice, competing with each other to lure consignments. Consequently, when an item is put up for auction, it’s auction estimate is less a function of market price than it is how much the auction house already has invested in it.

Presumably both Christie’s and Sotheby’s got carried away, and hoped that, with the stratospheric prices guaranteed lots would have to realize, their own euphoria would infect buyers. For much of 2008, this sort of contagion didn’t take place, with Christies and Sotheby’s on the ropes as a consequence, and the Phillips de Pury, who should have known better, acquired by a Russian luxury retailer, Mercury Group, exchanging debt for equity.

I mention all this in light of the Los Angeles Art Show, organized by the Fine Art Dealers Association, previewing tonight and running through this Sunday, January 25. At all levels of collecting, this sort of fair should be part of everyone’s agenda. A vetted fair, material at all price levels, from $500 to $5,000,000 represents quality and value for money. Comparison shop, why don’t you, and then deal with the dealers. It is all for sale. Take it out to your home, see if it works, and bring it back if it doesn’t. Need to consult with one of the dealers about your collection? Why don’t you do that, too- it doesn’t cost anything and they’re all experts. And, frankly, frequently more expert than the auction houses. After all, the art inventory on the show floor represents their own stock in trade, purchased with their own money and they tend to be naturally more careful in consequence.  And, no sub-rosa ‘guarantees’ affecting prices. I haven’t met a dealer yet, at least any one who has managed to stay in business, who wasn’t careful about pricing. Items are priced to sell, but, as I always inquire of interested parties if I encounter price resistance, ‘What sort of price works for you?’

Once or twice a year, Keith and I get backed into doing a bit of interior design, usually for clients who’ve made a purchase of significant size, either dollar-wise or square-footage-wise, and need our assistance to make the piece articulate with other movables in a particular room. Not too difficult, you say? Sometimes the greatest adjunct we could have, given the size of some collectors’ collections, would be a shoehorn. More likely as not, however, the articulation of one piece of furniture leads to something else- clients always seek our advice, and, as they’ve paid hard money to us, we are hard put not to oblige.

Consequently, what starts as one thing, ends up being much broader in scope, even including whole room changouts. Even the simplest projects of this type end up filling a large three-ring binder, replete with notes, renderings, memo samples of inputs running the gamut from fabrics to door nails. As an example, we’ve sourced a set of 10 white painted Louis XVI style dining chairs for a friend/client. The chairs had a finish that, in the course of a century or so, had become somewhat distressed. The client wanted to keep the distress, but not so much. Contriving faux distress is do-able, but hard. As well, the clients have five small children (read ‘good Catholic family’) who would sit at table, so the upholstery couldn’t be too dear. What we’ve ended up doing is suggesting loose covers in a plaid that, of course, has to articulate with, but not match, sofa covers in a room adjacent. We’ve had our seamstress run up sample covers in muslin- one with a flat skirting without a gusset, the other with a scalloped edge including a gusset, so the clients could choose. The fabric has been reserved- good thing, too, as the loose covers will require 28 yards of fabric, and the fabric house had only 29 yards in stock. Now, to push the clients to make a decision before the time on our fabric reserve runs out. Finally, we will have to take the chairs, after the finish is properly distressed and whilst the slipcovers are being stitched together, to the upholsterer for an application of muslin on the existing seats and backs to consolidate the stuffing. Not to mention, one or five of the chairs will have to make a detour to our restoration studio to tighten the joints.

What I’m saying in my longwinded exemplar gratis is that interior design is a complicated business that we have neither the desire nor the patience to do on a full-time basis. I particularly admire people who are able to do jobs that I never could- that fairly long list includes grade school teachers and police officers. As I think about it, features in these two named professions might be useable in the design trade- patience, of course, and the power to push when required.

Mercifully, we have a number of interior designers who are excellent trading partners. Our business would be the poorer for them, in real terms, because they do occasional place a few bits of our stock in their projects. But less obvious is the interference they run with clients who would otherwise be seeking our advice. Believe me when I say I would rather refer someone to a designer than do design work myself.

How sorry we are to hear that not only is the art and antiques trade having tough sledding, but from what we can see, the interior design trade is in profound distress. Locally in San Francisco, there exists no firm of which I’m aware that has not either reduced staff or the working week, or both. Distress, too, because so much of the good advice, and, frankly, hand holding that the designers provided their clients may not take place and might be- horrible thought- required of the notoriously impatient principals of Chappell & McCullar. The design distress noted in my blog title for today is, therefore, two fold.