It’s now modern in retail to make use of “curate” to counsel superior pre-selection of products to put earlier than languid clients, however Gretchen Andersen was an precise curator – she knew about and really a lot cared for issues, and shared her enthusiasm with anyone. So her unsmart small store, the Lacquer Chest in Kensington Church Avenue, London, which she saved for 66 years, influenced the style of tastemakers.
Andersen, who has died aged 94, and her husband Vivian, took the enterprise over in 1957 from his mom, Esme, who had opened it early within the Nineteen Fifties. They turned it away from formal antiques. Because the 20s, artists had collected not drawing-room-mantlepiece contents, however vernacular and people arts and crafts, purposeful objects from kitchens and backyard sheds, ethnic textiles, in style prints, and all that the economic Potteries might mould and paint. The second world conflict’s disruptions, and its impoverished aftermath, then brought about a home downsizing within the UK that launched hoards of such treasures from city homes break up into flats, nation homes offered, a center class now not with servants to cook dinner and clear. Two centuries’ value of it submerged suburban junk outlets, native auctioneers, and depositories’ gross sales yards.
The Andersens had been amongst, and understood, a brand new era of consumers for this trove, who had little interest in an merchandise’s significance or significance however, because the artists had, preferred it for its amusing high quality, or as potential set-dressing for scenes of their life-style. So the couple, he an engineer with Ove Arup, she a major college trainer who studied ceramics, put their total £300 capital into the Lacquer Chest (annual lease £125).
Their working precept was that the previous was a overseas nation that had produced many fantastic items; they’d be the importers. Each had subtle eyes for issues that remained rewarding regardless of how presently out of favour. He made common rounds of outer London junk outlets; she put their weary automotive on a prepare to Perth each month to drive spherical Highland stuff clearances, and weekly scavenged the West Nation and Cotswolds earlier than new most important roads had been constructed. She purchased and offered twice as a lot as he did: he loved tinkering and upgrading.
They had been in the correct location – Church Avenue joined messy Notting Hill, near the sellers’ HQ round Portobello Market, with what grew to become by the late 60s the cool finish of Kensington Excessive Avenue. And on the proper time, when pioneer gentrifiers had been longing for provides of the eclectic. Alan Bennett got here by early. Pupil David Hockney regarded for helpful furnishings. Terence Conran needed uncommon chairs as inspiration for his designs. The adorning agency of Colefax and Fowler checked her inventory weekly for many years. Alongside Church Avenue, retail went up on the earth – so many chandeliers! – to match property values, however the Chest’s personal inside stayed the unpretentious identical, right down to the economic steel shelving.
Andersen did uncover that buyer tastes modified, even in items from the previous – the Nice Kitchen Dresser Revival interval that had showcased so many, so different, ceramics, proper right down to eggcups, ebbed within the mid-80s, and minimalism brutally decluttered interiors.
In 1963, Andersen had loaned Vogue journal furnishings for a shoot, and Home & Backyard borrowed props for units. So she established a rent division – issues purchased as a result of she preferred them, and didn’t wish to half with them: “What I needed to maintain had been the uncommon issues, however what folks needed to rent had been the not-so-rare-things.” And infrequently what wouldn’t promote, would rent. The Chest grew to become a dependable stylists’ useful resource for objects to star in commercials, pictures for meals books, and interval tv sequence and movies, together with Gosford Park (2001).
Within the Andersen’s personal home, some issues had been without end keepers (irrelevant whether or not they had price seven shillings and sixpence or £76, and would fetch way more), others flowed by means of house, rent and store. At Vivian’s suggestion, photos on their very own partitions had been offered each time they’d a repaint.
The couple had met in London as a result of he stopped to assist her when an previous taxi – which she had purchased for £50 – broke down; they went on to a nightclub collectively. She had come to London in 1949 from South Africa, the place she was born, the daughter of Oma (nee Froom) and Cyril Scholz, a lawyer, and had studied English on the College of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, on the outstanding age of 15. Within the winter of 1949 she had been a passenger in a automotive that crashed en path to a snowboarding vacation within the French Alps. Her legs had been significantly injured, needing repeated surgical procedures, and he or she discovered strolling troublesome all her life: solely in her 80s did she use sticks – by then she had a set of advantageous previous examples.
Vivian died in 2011. She is survived by their youngsters, Ben, Toby and Emily. The store stays within the household and continues to be open.
