DEALERS’ DIARY
Coleman ensures Bath fair still cuts the mustard
For years, among other always flattering descriptions, the Bath Decorative Antiques Fair has been dubbed “the queen of the decorative fairs” which perhaps is not one of the trade’s weightier appellations.
But it sums up the three-times-yearly West Country fixture’s appeal and I must say that when I covered the first Bath fair back in 1989, I was a little sniffy.
That was unfair of me. For many years, Bath has been a strong and reliable event and it still is. This year’s spring staging will be from March 6 to 9 at the Pavilion, where it all started.
Many of the original dealers are still there and the roll call for this March includes Appledore Antiques of Bideford, Devon; Bringsty Vintage Living from Herefordshire; London’s Brownrigg@Home; and Bath’s own Not Wanted on Voyage.
But now, as has been the case for some time, the likes of BADA and LAPADA members exhibit and add their kudos.
So there will also be W.W. Warner Antiques of Burford, Oxfordshire; John Bird Antiques from Devon; and Bruford of Exeter.
As with other leading regional fairs, the Bath event has developed an individual style. Many of the dealers are now long established and have been around on this circuit as long as the fair itself, so the event comes with a distinctive personality of its own. You know the general drift of décor to the Bath fair but it is a winning combination and very individual after all these years. It is an event which has become famous nationally for decorative antiques such as painted furniture.
So if one is in any reasonable state on the date of opening, Bath is worth the trip. From the start it has enjoyed a strong local support and that continues.
The Pavilion is not a huge venue but it is a big, long hall and the Bath fair seems perfectly proportioned to it. Over the years, the fair has had its problems, not least a fire at a staging a decade ago.
But nothing seems to dim its popularity. Bath was among the first of the decorative fairs, with its profile enhanced by many of the London dealers who began bringing trips around it. But more recently Continental European dealers have also found the fair congenial.
If current trends continue under organiser Robin Coleman, whose tireless devotion of BADA/BATF fairs has seen him oversee the development of a number of leading, now proven fairs, Bath is destined to keep Trade support.
March has proven a strong time of year for decorative fairs, with the late, great London Decorative and Textiles Fair, now sadly no more, being the big influence.
The Bath fair is one of the survivors of those pioneering days, still able to cut the mustard after all these years. And in these times of too many fairs, too many small regional venues, and not all of them financially viable, that makes Bath all the more remarkable.
Any thoughtful organisers will not be too proud to pay tribute to this trailblazing fair, and the formula which works so well for it.
More on Bath shortly.
