Rococo Revived

 I saw this quote from William Morris in the Metro the other day:

"The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life."

The quote was beside a top-stitched saddle leather bell-push, and very attractive it was too, though if I was ever able to afford it, I would have to wait an unspecified amount of years/forever for it to be bought, for the owner to have become bored of it, for someone to regard it as useless or worthless and then for it to hopefully end up on a bric-a-brac shelf in one out of my local string of charity shops.

I have a great desire to, one day own a whole house where everything, from the plug sockets to the curtain hooks, is beautiful, and the majority of the objects to have that previous mysterious history to it that I find so fascinating.

The collection is slowly getting there, though admittedly, I only have one double room to fit out at the moment; a project like filling a house would be a lifetime's work.. one I'm willing to undertake.

More to the point, I was in my favourite haunt of a charity shop the other week, and I thought I'd browse the womenswear. 

I don't often, though I'm sure there are many gems in that section, this is mainly due to the fact that the womenswear tends to be 70% of every charity shop while only 10% is taken up with menswear, and if I were to browse the womenswear it would be to either hunt for misplaced menswear, or to find designer clothes to sell. The latter I only do when I'm in the direst of straights. 

(Also, if I was to browse the womenswear in every charity shop, I would be spending 95% of my life in charity shops, instead of the meager 85% I spend now [Today we're going to learn about percentages!])

SO glancing over the shoes and hanging up, the scarves and the jewellery there are two gold objects poking out from behind a PashMink. 

Two dreadfully fancy and terribly heavy brass coat hangers in the Rococo style. 

Regarding the former comments I made previously (oh so well tailored to this particular post), I had to have these objects.

They were tied together with one tag '£3' and also had one tag each, also written '£3'.

I take them to the till and my favourite goatee'd gentleman (a recurring character on Brioni on the Breadline) takes one look at one of the tags and says "£3 please!"

Who am I to argue?

I brought them home and decided to research them, because I somewhat doubted they would be some sort of reproduction.

Why did I not think they were reproductions?

Reproductions are usually of objects that will sell - popular porcelain, classic designs, not wholly impractical things that wouldn't fit into our compact silver-birch-clad Ikea lives of the twenty-first century. 

Two heavy brass hangers that would clang in a wardrobe and are too heavy to throw in a suitcase and fly to Japan are not something that I would believe would sell today, even as a novelty.

With this in mind I googled them.

Up popped the same, and similar coat hangers on etsy, ebay etc.

All described as "Art Nouveau Antique Brass Hangers."

Sorry! These hangers are not Art Nouveau, they are Rococo.

They might date from the early 20th century [still unverified] but that doesn't automatically make them Art Nouveau.

Why??

  

People were taking older styles, decided they liked them and copy/paste, the style lives again for five minutes, then another style, then rinse and repeat, over and over again, right to today.

The Victorians loved taking styles like 'Gothic' from the Middle Ages and creating 'Gothic Revival', which is essentially 'Gothic' but romanticized, then building their houses in this "new" style for their super modern lives and to house their sixty-four children and their domestics.

Both Rococo (early 18th century) and Art Nouveau (from late 1800's - early 1900's) share inspiration from nature, and they are both highly stylized, yet they are both extremely different styles.

Rococo is a lush, gilded creeping vine while Art Nouveau conveys the perfect symmetry in nature.

Rococo-style brass hangers - £3 the pair

These fine examples of Rococo Revived now hang on my picture rail, like two pieces of art, holding my two beautiful Maison Martin Margiela jackets...
...but that's another story.

A Lurking Bird

Victorian plate with exotic bird transfer print - £10

This Victorian exotic bird set in a circular frame of candyfloss pink on an octagonal plate was staring at me with his one eye for weeks.

Definitely couldn't afford it with the hefty pricetag of £10.
But I decided to go for him, him and his blushed plumage, surrounded by probably-symbolic leaves and plants.

The same gemp'um who served me when I bought the Victorian print of Hagar served me again, with his impressive goatee and his happy, chatty demeanor.

I was imagining how the candyfloss pink would match the neon pink robes of Hagar's sleeping friend on my wall.

"There are other plates with birds and nature on over there if you're interested." He smiled.

I went to check. It had been hung amongst other plates not-fit-for-consuming-food-from, but the kind that are always stacked in charity shops. The kind that come in a set of four and represent a different month.. or a different vegetable.. that type.

"No thanks, this one's an old one."
"Oh, they're not old enough for you are they?"


It dawned on me that I might be ageist. Ageist to those very things I choose to have around me.
I admit it. A piece of porcelain that has managed to survive at least a century of Jimmys throwing frisbies and poorly-handled dusters without being entirely destroyed will never lose novelty for me. I don't mind a crack, or a chip, or even a breakage crappily glued back together (especially if the repair is contemporary), it can even add to a piece.
I'm ageist, but not faultist.

How can I tell it's old?

• The style, for one, stands out. It's most likely a make-believe bird, or a depiction of a bird that the artist has never seen in his life. This adds a strangeness to it that you never see anymore (unless it's a reproduction).
• The clear touch of a human hand. The bird is a transfer print, but the imperfect black border of the octagon in clearly hand-painted. 
• Old porcelain often has a hand-painted number, or symbol on the reverse.
• Unless a piece has been in a box for decades, it's is going to have wear, from being dragged around tables (or more likely, from being shoved in a bag marked 'DONATIONS' and thrown in the back of a Volvo)
• In addition to the above point, old stuff has imperfections, just during the creation process it will gather minute faults that you wont find on a brand new piece of porcelain.

'Gator Heaven

I work from 9-5, Monday to Friday, I live in London, and yet my mother exclaimed "What's that bag?!" when I went home with my rather executive-looking messenger bag I found in Oxfam some time last year.

That's because I'm not executive. I don't, and have never worked behind a desk, I can wear what I want to work (within reason) but I tend to look a bit more executive than I need to; I love beautiful tailoring and I've just recently got sick of shirts buttoned-to-the-neck. I also collect handmade silk ties (not that I ever wear them).

Keeping these two facts in mind, I've never needed a Filofax, that is, until I stumbled across the one I found yesterday.

Flicking through the menswear, as I usually do (so bored of those shirts), I skimmed passed the Farhi suit that's been hanging in this particular charity shop for eternity and then the line ends, no more men's clothes, just the bookshelves. "Any five for £1" I think the current offer was, I usually glance over the shelves to see if any ancient-looking spines are smiling with their weathered leather at me, but I didn't need to this time - the bargain* was sat on the third shelf up, not tucked in with the books, just casually lying on it's back, basking in the yellow classroom lights.

They say you gauge someone's personality within the first five seconds of you meeting them (or something like that) my first five seconds with this Filofax was "There's no way it's alligator" My hand moving towards it "It's embossed leather. If it's leather at all."

Nope, it's alligator. The smell of leather, the irregularities of the scales, the sheer weight of the thing, the beautiful patent shine it has from use.
It was a vintage alligator 'Agenda' by Mulberry.
There was no question as to whether I needed it; in the corner on a label was written the price in Biro:
£1.50.

It's at least a decade old, I'm sure there should be a tube line on the Underground map on the first page that didn't exist when it was created.
But there's no denying the quality, especially of the material it is crafted from.

Vintage Mulberry alligator agenda - £1.50

Oh, and there's a new agenda on the Mulberry website, crafted from the still-exotic-but-not-quite-alligator-standard ostrich skin, selling for £895.


*I dislike the word bargain and I'm not really sure why. It seems to bring to mind crazed shoppers buying things they'll gag over later.

Haggle for Hagar

I think it's appropriate to start this blog with two excellent finds.

Because I'm not joking, the stuff you find out there really gives weight to the phrase "One man's trash is another man's treasure." or Anglicized "One man's rubbish is another man's riches." Which has certainly been my case in the past, when times have got tough(er).

I don't sell much anymore, I explained to a very nice bearded man in one of my favourite charity shops yesterday when I bought this etching below; there wasn't a price on it and so I enquired, he hesitated, looked at his French colleague who shrugged and said "£5?" My heart sank a little, I was really quite taken with this 19th century image of Hagar and her sleeping friend, especially seeing as Hagar had been quite sloppily daubed in a pale blue paint and her friend in an almost neon pink by someone, I imagine, who wasn't working at the company producing the image.

I'm not religious but I do have a strong belief that religion is the inspiration behind the world's greatest art.

In fact I was mistaken and the bearded man said to me "£1 then?"
Do you ever get that when you think you've only reacted in your mind, but actually it's been more than apparent on your face?

He laughed "That look tells me you know how much it's actually worth?"
And my answer was the truth:
"No, I don't sell, I only buy things to clutter up my room."

"And the Angel of God called to Hagar out of Heaven", 1846 - £1.00