Category Archives: Blog

Featured on Halstead: Hidden Secrets of a Furniture Dealer

Good Design Shop on Halstead Property

Recently, I contributed a piece to Halstead Property’s fantastic Tumblr Blog. We discussed unsung Italian design leaders, advice for buying and collecting vintage furniture, and trends in the modernism market.

What made you become a modernism dealer?

I started out as an Americana dealer in upstate New York. When I relocated
to NYC I became a modernism dealer. I fell in love with Italy. I learned Italian and specialized in Italian Design. The market for Italian Design was slow in developing. It was thought to be the poor stepsister to French Design. Then in 2005, a glass and oak table by Carlo Mollino sold at auction for almost 4,000,000 dollars. At the time, only the big names, Gio Ponti, Carlo Scarpa, Gino Sarfatti, and Ettore Sottsass were well known. As the market has developed our awareness of makers has sophisticated.

Read the entire article on the Halstead Property Tumblr.

 

A Dealer’s ‘Glamorous’ Life

It’s cold and damp in Milan. A colleague wants to introduce me to a new dealer.

I’m bundled up in hood and gloves, inside the new dealer’s basement storage, a warren of small spaces, and still freezing.  Piles of furniture and lighting are hidden under plastic sheeting and stacked to the ceiling. It’s impossible to see anything. We wait politely and shiver, as the dealer opens each room to these ghostly unidentifiable piles.  The dealer apologizes about how difficult it is to see his things. Yet he seems unwilling to unpack his inventory. It turns out to be is a total waste of  time.

This is not exactly what many might think life is like for a dealer, filled with elegance and openings. Most dealers sleep on long flights sitting up and spend hours in cold dirty auction rooms hoping to buy something special that will make them a decent profit.

Continue reading

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from Good Design

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for the New Year from all of us at Good Design.

The gallery will be closed December 24 – January 4. We will reopen Monday, January 5.

Have a safe and happy holiday.