In the early sixties I opened the Saturday Shop near the Portobello road antiques market.we started off selling antique bric a brac but moved on to Victorian curios,toys clocks and oddities or to give it a name,snob junk.
Alongside this we started selling stripped pine, much despised by nearby antique dealers cos it wasn't mahogany etc. But it quickly became fashionable and for a while we did very well as at that time there was only a handful of pine dealers in London and plenty of customers.
After a year or so lots of dealers got into the trade and the competition became great so we decided to try something new,painted furniture as above,also chest of drawers with targets, paisley designs and union jacks all in shocking colours.
Tom Salter of Gear in carnaby street saw these and bought the whole lot for his shop and made quite a splash with them.The union jack sold out within minutes and started a craze of being put on tin trays,cushions,badges and just about anything which could take it.
However we never made much money with the furniture as the young housewife of the sixties preferred to paint them themselves so we moved on. Its nice to think that
we were responsible for some of the sixties pop scene.
My son now runs the Saturday Shop,no longer a shop but now a factory making furniture and kitchens.
Interesting story.I knew that you had a shop in London,but didnt know the details of history.
ReplyDeleteAnd I like that photo of furniture.so lovely!
I thought the long-standing ad for the Saturday Shop must have some personal special connexion. Glad to sort that out... LOL
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had a great time years ago, in and around Portobello, and Carnaby Street use to have hoards of young ladies in their fashionable mini gear trotting up and down.
So it was YOU was it?
Love Granny
No Granny . . . it was me. In the King's Rd there was a shop with half a Buick hanging over the pavement. The name of the shop was 'GRANNY TAKES A TRIP' . . . So it was YOU was it?
ReplyDelete