Right at Home: Coming attractions in decor include the luxe and the loopy
A chandelier dripping with vintage grey flatware. An iPhone pouch that looks like a chocolate bar.
From the luxe to the loopy, the New York Worldwide Gift Fair, held twice a year, features thousands of booths stocked with the newest furnishings, books, children's goods, jewelry and textiles. Top organize studios from around the world share floor space with delicate, up-and-coming gift purveyors looking for their big break.
This is where we see the trends in decorative goods and gifts. A few to watch for:
1. Vintage, with a quirk.
From the 19th century through the 1960s, giftware at the show this year evoked the before. "Found" objects were a big theme — gathered in curio cabinets or repurposed. Many booths looked like stylish scavenger hunts. At Knobstoppers, there were old clay billiard balls made into bottle stoppers. Chunk's booth had chandeliers formed with old silverware, and trays and lamps made with outmoded French seed packets sandwiched between glass.
Retro burgh postcard candles stood out at Aunt Sadie's, while Velvet Raptor had beauteous velvet-clad stationery. Two's Company's Curiosity store offered nephrology model heads and glass illustration domes.
Laura Zindel's pottery featured inky, illustrated naturalistic allusion. Simrin had linen napery printed with old-style letter-paper restaurant placemats; Anne Taintor's snarky female stereotypes now adorn flasks and attempt glasses; 1970's geometric shapes could be seen in Artecnica's new tear-drop lamps and Jonathan Adler's ceramics.
Highlight: Classic investments that can withstand the test of time
Yet, as the legacy of the economic crisis sees creeping tax increases across the board, ‘wasting assets’ such as watches and clocks are increasingly being considered as an alternative investment by the more serious investor.
HM Yield & Customs (HMRC) considers such ‘mechanical’ items as case of the capital gains tax (CGT) regime because they are deemed to have a lifespan of 50 years or fewer and are principally for personal use.
Of course, VAT is often applied at purchase but the capital get nearer to arising from the liquidation of the asset is tax-free. No inheritance tax is proper either.
According to Paul Fraser Collectibles, the online locate of the former chairman and owner of collecting company Stanley Gibbons: “It has already been a nice year for rare, collectible timepieces, with several new world records set for watches at auction – including the most up-market gold wrist watch ever sold at auction”.
Viewpoint seems to be polarised as to the best way to enter the timepiece market; unemotional, cool investment focus or starting with a personal notice that has sentimental or aesthetic appeal for the investor.
Chris Brown, managing head of Fitzrovia Watches, says: “As with art, there is no point buying an surrogate investment unless you actually like it.” He explains as “tolerance markets are so choppy”, he has seen an increasing legions of people look for investments they can ‘“educe pleasure from, as well as a financial return”.
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