<<
Part One
The cost of doing the Winter Antiques
Show in New York City for the dealers is very high: booth rentals, union
labor costs, living expenses in the city for two weeks, truck and personal
transport, food and drink all add to the cost. These expenses, however,
are overshadowed by the possibilities of dealing with an audience that
is not only sophisticated, but motivated to buy. Dealers have
spent the entire year shopping for this particular marketplace and they
know that a good show can guarantee a year’s income. The public has
also been waiting a year to see what these particular dealers have unearthed.
The set up for the show is crucial to its success;
the merchandise can and will stand on its own but its eye-catching presentation
will help to ensure that, whatever the piece, it can’t be overlooked.
Needless to say, there is no margin for error and yet there are problems
lurking around every corner.
The weather can be one of those lurking
problems. During one particularly memorable set up of the show, a
major snowstorm greeted the day. The normally short trip to the city
took hours, not only for us, but also for our truck. The snow never
stopped falling during that day but our late arrival was the least of the
problems to come. The gymnasium floor was slushy and slippery; the
room itself was freezing. Anticipated deliveries never happened.
Our movements were slow and cautious on the slick surface as we didn’t
want to fall, or worse still, let a piece of furniture fall. We actually
were among the lucky ones; we only had to move a short distance from home
to the show. A dealer drove from Michigan in tandem with the storm
moving across the country.
One weather nightmare affected everyone - a
democratic deep freeze. The temperature outside hovered at zero degrees
and with the back door to the Armory left open the temperature inside was
the same. It was so bitterly cold that the back door actually froze
open. This became an issue of eminent domain. Who was actually responsible
for the door - the City of New York, the State or the military? Our
personal physical misery was less important, however, than the physical
damage caused to antiques maintained even for a day at these temperatures.
Porcelains and glass were brittle requiring kid glove care from our ski
gloved hands. We had a beautiful Queen Anne black lacquer table
which actually split open after being exposed to temperature extremes -
the sunless freeze inside the Armory during set up and the overheating
of the space in order to compensate for the cold the next day with
the back door finally closed.
There’s ice, snow, sleet...and then there’s
rain. The Armory had a fatal flaw; the roof leaked. (I understand
the problem has, at last, been corrected) The leaky roof, though,
was generally a manageable scenario. A dealer’s “precision engineered”
furniture arrangement would give way to whatever odd configuration the
leak demanded and a bucket for water would stand in lieu of the displaced
pieces of furniture. The rains would let up and the booth would be put
to rights.
The union workers are all highly specialized.
During set up they deal methodically with each job in the order received
and then move on to the next. When there’s a problem, however, they
all shift into crisis mode.
Our last year in the show gave us an intimate
portrait of how incredibly kind and able these men were. Our set
up had been unusually difficult. Our right-hand man was sick and unable
to be there. My mother had been hospitalized until two days prior
to set up and was, at best, limp. Vetting had cost us some accessories
which we felt were crucial to our display.
On opening day I arrived alone at the Armory
as my mother had a scheduled hospital visit. I had hoped to finish with
the set up in time to make a favorable impression on the press who would
be coming later that morning. When a security man, Ronnie Smith from
Pennsylvania, met me at the door with a cup of coffee I should have
known there already was a problem. I didn’t; these men were after
so many years old friends and, I knew, sensitive to the difficulties that
had happened on the day before. We chatted about the weather and
the horrific rain of the night before as he walked me to the booth...and
then I knew.
The contents of our booth sat in the aisle
along with the overhead lighting fixtures and the rug. In fact, the
aisle was impassable. Over the course of the next several hours union work
crews were on hands and knees drying the rug out with a hair dryer;
they were wiping off furniture surfaces; reinstalling the track lights,
slowly moving furniture back, hanging mirrors and bringing snacks.
The only thing they couldn’t do was to rewrite the elaborately detailed,
but now soggy, price cards. Miraculously, by the time my mother arrived
a couple of hours later we were looking downright presentable.
There’s a myth that the unions are impossible
to deal with. Quite the opposite is true.
*****
Personal sagas sometimes take center stage.
One dealer new to the show was, unbeknownst to anyone, having marital problems;
his private life became more public, however, when a sheriff came to the
show floor during set up to serve him with divorce papers. The dealer
returned just in time for the opening night festivities to a booth which
was hardly presentable for the crowd at hand. He never recovered
from his inadequate set up. His sales were nonexistent; he had missed
the buzz of opening night. When invitations were issued to exhibitors
for the following year, his was not in the mail.
Marilyn Quayle, as honorary chairperson for
the show, found herself in the midst of an emerging crisis. She was
surrounded by the press and seemed to be the object of great scrutiny.
Lita Solis-Cohen, a senior reporter for Maine Antique Digest, told
us that the story unfolding was not about Marilyn Quayle. An out-of-state
pair of dealers who were new to the show had created a wonderful presentation
for their English antiques. They had a problem, though; they had
a silent partner who was laying claim to most items in their booth.
One by one, the sheriff ordered the removal of these pieces. It was
a husband and wife team who had so proudly set up their booth. The
husband was not much in evidence during the run of the show but I was always
so impressed with how gamely the wife faced the show, day after day with
reputation tarnished and little to sell. Their invitation for the
next year’s show was also not in the mail.
It was always a leap of faith for a dealer to spend the
first nine months of the year buying for the show and then wait for the
invitation to come in September. For many dealers, most dealers, this issue
was not germane but for the smaller dealers, the unspoken fear was: would
they be replaced? One dealer took issue with the whole process of
being terminated without recourse. He instituted a lawsuit and the
upshot was the formation of a Dealers’ Committee. This committee
attempts to address the issues of concern to the dealers to the Show Manager
and the Winter Antiques Show Board.
The dealer at the center of the storm got his
second chance to exhibit. He hired a well known designer - Reuben
de Saavedra, now deceased - to display his antiques against a smashing
backdrop. This was a desperation move for a dealer whose antiques
were always uniquely displayed. It seems that his exclusion from
the show had nothing to do with presentation and he was, once again, dropped
from the roster. This man was one of my personal favorites - gentle,
warm, civilized - and it was agonizing to watch his sense of rejection.
He continued to thrive in the business doing many other shows. He
was also the guiding light behind the formation of the Antiques Council,
a consortium of dealers committed to presenting high end antiques shows
and with a particular sensitivity to dealer requirements. He died
two years ago but has left a strong legacy with the formation of the dealer’s
committee which continues on.
Jack Dolan, the labor consultant, preferred
the early years of the show with its emphasis on Americana. When
Mario Buatta became chairman of the show in the early 80’s, however, his
predilection was for European dealers. Mario likens the rift to the Republican/Democrat
ideological (and yes, political) differences. Needless to say, dealers
specializing in Americana were not pleased with this new direction but
there was more to come. Mario said that the inclusion of European
dealers was threatening to American dealers specializing in European antiques...they
would now have to compete with the very dealers from whom they bought abroad.
Along with an increasingly international flavor,
there were many more changes under Mario’s aegis. The bare green
and white gymnasium floor was carpeted; dealers were encouraged to display
their wares in a more 'salonish' setting. Everything about the show became
more polished. And with that came increased booth rentals and greater
demands on the unions to implement more elaborate schemes. Not everyone
was amused.
Along with this increased luster came a myriad
of events, lectures, social gatherings...and they all came with higher
price tags. Despite the infighting, there were many benefits to these
changes. The Winter Antiques Show now marked the beginning of the
social season in New York. Sotheby’s and Christies' piggybacked on the
antiques audience in New York, offering their most important Americana
auctions of the year. Dealer trade skyrocketed, offsetting some of
those additional expenditures. And for East Side House, whose original
benefit from the first show in 1954 was $1,700...these changes were nothing
short of miraculous.
Arie Kopelman, the president of Chanel and
now Chairman of the Winter Antiques Show, credits the new Show Director,
Catherine Sweeney Singer, with running the show “seamlessly”...I suspect
an overstatement. As in years past, the professionalism of everyone
involved creates that illusion for the public despite the difficulties
encountered along the way.
