In October, two GABBY team members travelled to Southern France on an antique buying trip. Over the course of six whirlwind days, Chris Hutchens and Kayte Granick travelled by almost every transportation means available to source the most interesting and beautiful French antiques from fascinating places.
One of the first stops was to a family home that doubles as an antiques storage space—it’s a scavengers’ paradise! The team sorted through thousands of pieces to find the best of the best stacked among the jumbled piles of tables, chairs, chests, and miscellaneous other items. Perhaps the most terrifying part of the experience was climbing a rickety ladder into the loft of an old barn. This high-altitude hideaway housed a vast collection of antique cork beehives, tossed haphazardly into a huge pile in the corner.
Another favorite stop was an outdoor flea market in Marseilles where the travelers managed to find some fantastic antique French Theater Costumes. The gentleman shown in the black hat sells from huge boxes and racks in the back of his truck, but certainly the star of this show was his scraggly little pooch. Our most exciting find of this day was a gorgeous bolero jacket from the 1850s worn by a Spanish Matador in a bullfight. The intricate needle and beadwork cannot be done justice in photos.
In one small, medieval French town overlooking the countryside, there was an old chapel, which had been restored into a small antique mall. The vaulted stone ceilings and arched doorways provided the perfect backdrop for huge collections of antique pewter and silver serving pieces and other great accessories for GABBY’s showrooms. Seeing this special building repurposed in such a way to give it new life really showed the ingenuity and joie de vivre of the French.
The very last day of the trip brought perhaps the most adrenaline-pumping adventure: a huge outdoor antique sale that started promptly at 8am. No one was allowed to enter the fairgrounds prior to the start of the sale, even the vendors had to park their trucks, fully loaded, and walk outside the grounds. Visitors all huddled in the early morning cold, waiting to for the word “Go!”. Groups of people were chattering amongst themselves—vendors enticed potential buyers to stop by their trucks first, buyers tried to pre-select their first stops. Once the gates were opened the race was on! Buyers and sellers alike took off running to their stations, vendors selling items before they even made it off their trucks. By lunchtime, most of the items brought had been unloaded or sold, and with the frenzy of the morning now past, groups congregated around sipping espresso and discussing the days’ haul.
For six days our explorers trekked across the southern French countryside: rummaging through attics, flea markets and crowded shops loaded with goods from floor to ceiling. Every available market was scoured. Every place was explored to hand-select only the most appropriate compliments to GABBY’s Showrooms. But this is only the beginning of the adventure and only part of the story that these Unique Finds have to tell. Visit GABBY’s showrooms to see these beautiful antiques and the ways they are meshed with Gabby’s transitional style to create stunning designs or visit HERE.
For more information on our Unique Finds and antiques, please visit: http://gabbyhome.com/product/category/antique-furniture/
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