INTERIOR DECORATION AND ANTIQUES

Evening Star, Issue 21318, 24 January 1933, Page 2

INTERIOR DECORATION AND ANTIQUES

A SURPRISE IN A CHICAGO CLOTHING STORE Who would tillnk of putting mitiques in a clothing store? Or of slipping mellow, age-old furniture here and among display cases containing suits and overcoats? Or of hanging English prints and Chippendale mirrors within easy reach of sales tables for men’s shirts, collars, and ties? This idea of giving an aristocratic, domestic background to a store whose business it is to fit out men and boys in proper dress is growing in Chicago. A customer trying on a spring coat, for instance, may eye himself in a three-panel mirror, then turn and walk a few steps to an attractive fireplace or a fine old chest of drawers reminding him of home. Or, he may sit beside a rare eighteenth-century secretary desk, whoso upper shelves are laden with treasured copies of Molierc, Locke, and Voltaire, while deciding which overcoat to choose. In the fitting room, while he is being pinned and measured, ho notices a .French armoire, the equivalent of a present-day wardrobe cabinet. He observes its fine carving and perhaps wonders in whose country home this cupboardlike furniture eventually will find a lodging place, so admirably would it serve for sheltering golf sticks, riding boots, and such. THE OFFICE, A HOME LIBRARY. A quiet library room opens from the salesroom on the second floor, which is really the office of the president. Old crimson brocade, hangings at the window shut out the turmoil of big city traffic, and the hurrying tread of shoppers on the street below. Within this room is the quietness and serenity of an English country home. The.walls have high oak panelling, above which is dark scenic wallpaper. The walnut Queen Anne desk holds one of the treasures of the room, a stationery box which is a copy of the one owned by i\larie Antoinette and now in the National Museum in Paris. A cubic foot or more in size, it rests on one corner of the flat-topped desk, shedding the lovely brick red colour of its tooled leather cover to other aecte•sorics. The box, with all its tiny inside drawers, was made especially for Hr Bastion as a gift from a friend. Though admittedly unique, somehow the whole scheme of mingling antique furniture with men’s clothes seems quite appropriate. Where English goods are emphasised, and Englishcut clothes arc featured, it appears quite in keeping to fill iu the odd corners and bare walls with furniture of English type. Bath robes can be flung on a huge gateleg table, battered and old. Neckties and scarves are displayed on a heavy old Tudor table. A bow front, highly polished chest of drawers, with a shaving mirror on top, is backed up against a glass case of suits.

COTTAGE DOOR LEADS TO WORKROOM.

The machinery of business is carefully concealed beyond panelled walls. A brass knocker on one door, for instance, suggests the entrance to a cottage, but really loads to workshop behind the scones, whore busy needles move over buttons or change seams. Though a tiny window serves as a passageway for bills and checks, it is scarcely noticed amid its_ surroundings of china, pewter, and prints. Part of the fun in collecting, of course, is the joy of discovery, the careless stumbling on to some treasure in an out-of-the-way place, and then the pride with which one tolls how ho found it himself. Not a few mothers bringing in their boys to bo fitted out in dotbes for boarding school have wandered about the large room ami found a choice piece of Spode or china figurine, a silhouette or print, a mirror or sewing cabinet, which just suited their taste.

The wliolo idea started when Mr Bastion decided three years ago to bring down a lew pieces of rare furniture from his homo to dress up the show windows. An early Tudor bookshelf and a Queen Anno secretary were placed in the windows as a background for silver-handled canes, spats, and shoes. To-day the passer-by notices all the windows have this unusual combination. Little Sheraton tables, tiny cabinets, brass candlesticks, pewter and pictures in one way or another enhance the sleek top hats, canes, scarves, ties, and suits. Each autumn now the president travels to Europe to Jirid some coveted pieces for his office or salesroom or windows. In 19,'10 he brought back the pine panelled walls of a room in a London house built in 1790. Back in Chicago again ho bad these walls sot up in a little wing of his store which is called the “ Collector's Corner,” to which he is adding more pieces. SOME LATE ADDITIONS. Pino furniture from an English home built by William Kent was recently placed in the “ Corner ” —a knee-hole desk, an open bookcase in Adam design having classic pilasters on either side beautifully carved, and a pair of consoles attributed to William Kent. The latter wore especially unusual for their smallness of scale. If the pine frame of the exquisitely carved Chippendale mirror could speak, it would no doubt tell of its many former coats of paint, its layer of gilt, its years of being chipped and scaled, and finally the total stripping of all coats until now it stands forth in its simple original beauty, with the entire emphasis on the oxqnisitcncss of its carvmg. Searching for these treasures on the Continent or along the English countryside constitutes a vacation from the clothing business. Mis latest acquisition is' a group of SO silhouettes, including work by such exports as Miens, 1-Inbard, Strand, Field, and Melford, all nicely displayed in a •‘‘corner of the Corner.” Several profiles of royalty are in the group, one of George 111', done when lie was still Prince of Wales. 01 hers show lino ladies in caps ami curls, older men prim and somite, younger men with head erect, and a few children. Two full-length

figures of gentlemen, one by Hnbard and one by Field, arc in the group. “ Cut with common scissors, by Master Hubard (aged thirteen years!, without drawing or , machine ” is marked on the hack of one of the silhouettes of a woman. The frames in this collection are original and untouched, and hold their little treasures just a few feet from a display of men’s shoes and hose.