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Barbara Heins - Antiques & Collectibles Monique Olmer in the Antan antiques shop she runs in Riverside. (Bob Luckey Jr./Staff photos) Barbara Heins Antiques & Collectibles Published March 31 2006 When Monique Olmer looks at a pair of vintage cast iron garden urns, she doesn't see squat vessels in need of a paint job and some healthy greenery. Rather, the 86-year-old envisions them as a set of unique lamps - painted an eggshell hue; mounted on a wooden black base, outfitted for electricity and wearing one of the lampshades she's designed. The Parisian native says she's always had an eye for creating new uses for old things. She loves old things so much that when the lease for her shop expired, she decided that instead of shuttering the antiques business she's run in Greenwich for a quarter-century, she'd move it to Riverside. Above a popular gourmet food shop is Antan, the shop where she sells French antiques - lamps, china, crystal, prints and paintings, and toleware. She and her late husband, Francis, founded the business when they ran out of room in their Greenwich house for all the antiques they collected. Olmer decided she could buy more antiques if she sold some. And Antan was born. Olmer traces her love of collecting to her late father, a physician in Paris who'd take her to antique markets and auctions. The family's passion for collecting was bolstered by the fact that residents of the small castles that dotted the French countryside often had to sell heirloom furnishings to finance repairs to their homes, Olmer recalls. "My father was there buying and collecting." She loves just about anything that's 18th century - from furniture to china, especially French china from the china foundries of Strasbourg, Luneville and Old Marseille. Paired with her art background (she studied fashion, interior design and antiques, and studied art at the Academie Julian in Paris) Olmer has a distinctive style of using antique, vintage and collectible items in the home. That's why she can look at those garden urns and see lamps. Ditto for Depression-era pressed glass candlesticks or chunky, earth-toned chunky vases of the 1930s and '40s. "It is something you have to have in you. You see it and immediately know you have to make a lamp," Olmer explains. The lamps, including shades she designs and has manufactured in the south of France, run about $750. The shades add a distinctive modern contrast to the antique lamps. "You can change the look of a room by changing the lamp shade," says Olmer's daughter, Adeline, a partner at Antan who also operates an interior design company that bears her name. While the Olmers' primary focus is lighting accouterments, they also sell a variety of European vintage decorative accessories -- crystal, china, toleware and prints. Mother and daughter say vintage crystal glasses, small European porcelains such as sugar and creamer sets, and tole trays make great hostess gifts. Adeline Olmer says many clients follow the trend of setting dinner party tables with large, bright vintage dinner plates that complement a more subdued china pattern. After years of collecting, Monique Olmer says: "The business of antiques is very different now. It's not the quality it used to be. Eighteenth century, there definitely is less supply. France and England are not very big countries. But there are all these shipments that are coming and coming and coming here." She says that with technology today, "you can do anything with old wood" including making it appear older than it really is. The business of antiques and collectibles is one of constant learning, says Monique Olmer. "You see something, your eyes have to really look at it. Your hands have to touch it. You have to listen to what the dealer has to say about it." When you speak to good dealers, you sense their passion. You can read books and magazines. It's not something you can take a course on. Of course you can, but learning is first-hand." Her advice to collectors buying antiques: "You buy because you love it, not because it is valuable." When she's not shopping for antiques, Olmer enjoys painting, making collages and making pillows with designer and vintage fabrics, which she also sells in her shop. She's made about 50 collages from items she clips from magazines. She's found a framer and hopes to display some of her works in her shop. Asked about her decision to move her store rather than slow down, perhaps even retire, Olmer says: "I couldn't do that, I'd die." * Antan is on the second-floor of 1075 E. Putnam Ave., Riverside, above the Aux Delices gourmet food shop. Hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. ---- Barbara A. Heins' Antiques & Collectibles column runs the last Friday of each month. Copyright © 2006, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.  This 19th-century French garden lamp costs $750. Monique Olmer lamp shades run in the $165 to $200 price range. (Bob Luckey Jr./Staff photos)  These Johnson Brothers plates, circa early 1900s, retail for $1,200 for a set of 12. ((Bob Luckey Jr./Staff photos) |
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2008 © Adeline Olmer. All Rights Reserved. |
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