Style up Spring!

Bath Decorative Antiques Fair 2-5 March 2017 announces a one day collaboration with the popular vintage and antiques market BathVA!

On Sunday 5 March Bath Decorative Antiques Fair will take place on the same day as BathVA and visitors will be invited to join one of the country’s most exciting young dealers Edd Thomas of Edd in the Clouds at both events for a ‘Style Up Top Picks’ tour of the Bath Decorative Fair and the tour will continue in the afternoon at BathVA.  The tour will be covered on social media in real time and in the run up to the event.

Edd Thomas is the chairman of the celebrated Antiques Young Guns and will be concentrating on inspiring visitors to look at antiques in a new way, to think about a ‘century mash up’ - making antiques relevant by mixing with contemporary and vintage pieces on sale at both fairs – for example styling a huge industrial shop counter with a collection of traditional copper pans or a sleek Lucite dining table styled with silver plate Country House food domes.

Other events at the fair include an exciting  antiques industry celebrity tour of the Bath Decorative Antiques Fair on Friday 3 March when ‘The Queen of Antiques’ Judith Miller will tour the fair to choose ‘Judith’s Top Picks for Collectors’ and this tour will be video streame.

in real time on social media.  Dedicated tour tickets giving a free glass of Prosecco for both tours are available via the Bath Decorative Antiques Fair website News Page.

The contrast of the two tours confirms the diversity of the Bath Decorative Antiques Fair, a hybrid, part decorative antiques - painted furniture, pieces for the garden and conservatory, mirrors, lighting, textiles, English and European pottery, collectible Country House objects, and part super chic metropolitan style.  Expect to see exquisite Folk Art rubbing shoulders with Falcon leather chairs, period portraits and Naive Art with C20th Modern & Contemporary Art and all convening with ‘decorative’ as the headline and quality and rarity as the key at this madly busy and fun event.

Around 45 exhibitors attend the event and a good number of those dealers do not exhibit at any comparable fairs and keep stock back for Bath.  Such is the popularity of this unique event that a core group of exhibitors return year on year, some going right back to the very first fair! 

Returning exhibitors announced so far in 2017 include No 1 Lewes, Chris Holmes Decorative Antiques,  John Shepherd & Erna Hiscock, Life England, Linda North, Not Wanted on Voyage, Scandinavian by Design, Wharton Decorative Antiques, Elham Antiques, Appledore Antiques, Mike Chugg Decorative Antiques, Winfield Canes, John Wiseman Reclamation & Salvage Antiques, Waterfall Antiques, William Morris Antiques, Guy Dennler Antiques,  Michael Holt Antiques, Paul Burnett Decorative Antiques, Michael Holt Antiques, Larkhall Fine & Decorative Art, Paul Drewett and Candice Horley C20th Glamour.

The continued success of this unique event ensure exciting new names making a debut each year and released so far are Het Archief, Belgium, Kent, La Place Antiques,  Vagabond Antiques & Decor, both from Sussex, Brookhouse Vintage, Bath, Catherine Waters Antiques and Kore Purchase Decorative Antiques both Tetbury, Elizabeth Lee Interiors, Somerset, Antiques by Design, Staffordshre, The Swedish Room, Hungerford and Mark Blower Antiques, The Channel Islands

Always a star attraction at Bath and flying the flag for traditional Folk Art, Naive Art, English pottery and country furniture will be Devon based Appledore Antiques who has recently teamed up with Winfield Antique Canes who have a particular flair for reinventing how we look at walking canes with their arresting display using artist’s lay figure hands to hold the canes against a black velvet wall .  Another favourite exhibitor dealing in traditional Folk Art, samplers, pottery and ephemera will be Erna Hiscock and John Shepherd.

At the other end of the spectrum C20th Mid Century design will be well represented by Scandinavian by Design, Not Wanted on Voyage and Decorative & Modern.  French and Swedish decorative antiques  will be on show from The Swedish Room, La Place Antiques and No1 Lewes. Chris Holmes Antiques and Elham Antiques also deal in French painted furniture, garden antiques and large scale industrial pieces.  Contemporary artist Chloe Holt, partner of Chris Holmes will be showing her very popular abstract flower paintings after a sell out show at Bath in 2016.

Bath Decorative Antiques Fair is known as a source for garden antiques and this year Linda North, and Elizabeth Lee Interiors will be enticing visitors with French, Italian and English garden furniture, jardinières and urns. Trends from last year show that decorators are using garden pieces for interior installations seeking distressed metal tables and chairs for accent pieces.  Another trend in 2016 for decorators was architectural reclamation with huge French doors and fire surrounds and decorative ironwork being snapped up from Wharton Antiques and John Wiseman Antiques.

The Fair is held in the dearly loved Pavilion, part of the landscape in Bath and full of character, a bit like the fair, and located a couple of minutes walk from the buzz of the Georgian City of Bath with all its many acclaimed restaurants and bars.