Linda Zukas filled the exhibition halls with her dealers for the 20th annual Antique Textile and Vintage Fashion Show at the Sturbridge Host Hotel and Conference Center on May 10, to the delight of a crowd of loyal customers.
Zukas proclaimed the show, “The best ever! We were filled to capacity with dealers showing great collections and wonderful, loyal customers who were back for this 20th year show. It was great! There is a huge audience at this show, with ravenous buyers; nearly everyone who enters buys, and usually several things.”
Silvermine Antiques, New Canaan, Conn., specializes in Eighteenth Century fashions and accessories for the well-dressed gentlemen and ladies of that period in America. Proprietor Maureen Mayer featured several ladies’ outfits in bright colors and also a child’s suit. Among the accessories she offered were about a dozen textile pocketbooks, most made of embroidered flame stitch material, ranging in price from $300 to $3,000.
Kim Kirker moved from her regular site in the exhibit hall to be on a wall where she could better display her collection and inventory of midcentury fashions. This Leesport, Penn., dealer has been finding premium fashions from the 1940s and 1950s and other periods for the show, with regular customers filling her booth as soon as the show opens.
Susan Parrish was selling last year as if she might have been planning to retire, but she was here again this month. “I do well and this is what I like to do. This show works for me, so I keep coming back.” From New York City, she carries quilts, coverlets and small textiles.
Clothing from 1950 and the past 150 years is the specialty of Victoriana. Connie Marks from Rocky Point, N.C., was selling early children’s outfits, Victorian fashions and a collection of Edwardian period doll’s clothing; in fact, an entire wardrobe. The show attracts very focused buyers, she said.
Michelle Piccolo was also targeting her merchandise to be mostly notions related to textiles. Trading as Dusty’s Vintage from nearby Holland, Mass., she filled one wall with her button collection.
Quilts and coverlets were offered by many of the exhibitors, with good sales results in spite of the possible competition. Pique is from Sharpsburg, Ga., with lovely pieces from the South, including a colorful silk piece. Koval’s Antiques came from Schellsburg, Penn., with tables piled several feet high offering quilts from the Amish craftspeople of their home state and much more. Martha Perkins, an hour away in Ashby, Mass., was selling New England quilts, handmade with mostly cottons from the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.
Steve Mohr, More & More, New York City, has an eclectic collection of fashions, textiles and accessories for his customers. As one of the many dealers who has been exhibiting for all 20 years of the show, he notes there are regular customers who race to his display and spend time perusing specific parts of his collection that they want for their own collections. His sales included many fashionable purses, scarves, gloves and ensembles.
Warwick, R.I., dealer Magi Motola “sold mostly the opulent textiles, the velvets with the embroideries on them, some clothing, some purses and corset laces.” She said, “I happened to buy a lot of corset laces and so, now, if you need them, I have them!”
Traveling the furthest to exhibit was Steven Porterfield of The Cat’s Meow, Midland, Texas, showing prom dresses from the 1950s and before, cocktail dresses and gowns for debutante balls. He also had some simpler fashions as well, and the accessories to go with them.
Great small antiques for the lady’s boutique could be the description for the inventory offered by Epping, N.H., dealer Lynda Ziegler. She had a graduated set of hatboxes, the smallest about 4 inches wide, in very early wallpaper coverings.
Prepared to outfit a midcentury movie set with her costumes, Lucy Jakubowski was taking up short-term residence in her usual corner space for the day with a huge inventory of great everyday clothing for men and women. As the show opened, regular shoppers ran to her space to examine what she had to offer. Nearby, Anthony Camisa was presenting more casual clothing of the same period and also earlier. Both of these exhibitors are from New York City.
From upstate New York, Home Farm Antiques offered vintage outfits that had been for some kind of dress-up affair, according to owner Pat Martin. She had a boy’s elegant black dress-up costume, looking like something from Louis XIV, which she said was late Nineteenth Century and probably for an event or even a show costume. There was a companion piece for a girl as well.
Lynne Weaver featured a collection of coverlets and quilts. Her husband, Paul, said they were found near their home in Wenham, Mass.
For those looking for vintage gifts for a romantic partner, Forget Me Not Antiques was the place to be. Susan Voake, Norwich, Vt., was showing her collection of early valentines cards, kid gloves, nosegays, scenters for the lady’s linen drawers and even some lady’s accessories in clothing.
The Antique Textiles and Vintage Fashion Show is always on the Monday of Brimfield Week. The show will return here July 12 and September 6. For information, www.vintagefashionandtextileshow.com or call 207-363-1320.
