Chelsea Antiques Fair faces the end

In mid-December owner and organiser Caroline Penman decided that she would not continue with the fair, which was founded in 1950 and is the second oldest antiques fair on the calendar. Only Grosvenor House, founded in 1934, is older.

From the Antiques Trade Gazette. The Penman Fairs website expresses the hope that someone will come forward to keep the show running. I confess that it's been quite a while since I've attended the Chelsea Fair (when I was making regular autumn buying trips in Europe, I would usually get to London a bit later, towards the end of September). It's sad to see the antiques scene there so transformed: shocking enough what eBay has wrought here in the USA, but the markets in Britain had such a history. Now Portobello's more tourism than trade, Camden Passage is being redeveloped, and Bermondsey's a pitiful shadow of what it was. Weirdly enough, online articles tout them all as if they remain in their prime.

Posted by David on January 19, 2008 4:41 PM