Dear Diva Readers,
Our Antiques Diva locally based English Diva Gail McLeod is putting on her pearls and joining the jet setters at Berkley Square – she’s taking our Swedish Divo Guide Daniel as her “date” for an opening night fete representing The Antiques Diva & Co at the art & antiques social event of the season!
Glamorous, sparkling and alluring, over the last five years the LAPADA London Art and Antiques Fair has developed into one of the most interesting events around. The 25-29 September 2013 event will have more than 100 exhibitors. Prices of works range from £500 up to £500,000 and beyond, offering the most discerning collector exceptional antiques and fine art to choose from and inviting first time collectors to develop exciting new interests. Among the exceptional works on offer are furniture, jewellery, carpets, tapestries, antiquities, clocks, ceramics, silver and fine art.
One of the vendors making a debut this year at the fair is the society jeweler Grima whom has all of us here the AD&Co SWOONING! Their jewelry is wearable sculpture! It’s modern, sexy, and voluptuous. It’s not unusual to see a Grima design fashioned from watermelon tourmaline with diamond stamens, or find a fire opal set in beaten gold or a huge Colombian emerald pendant tied up with ribbons of diamonds. Iconic style-setters of every generation have been drawn to the brand. In the 60s and 70s it was people like Princess Margaret, Jackie Onassis, Peter Sellers, Estee Lauder, Ursula Andress and sculptor Barbara Hepworth, and more recently, fashion designers Miuccia Prada and Marc Jacobs.
Francesca Grima, daughter of founder Andrew Grima, who was fortunate to have spent ten years working with her father before his death in 2007, will exhibit with her mother Jojo Grima showing iconic Grima designs from the 60s and 70s together with their own contemporary interpretations and original designs. Francesca Grima’s talent for creating remarkable jewellery came not just from the emotional support her parents provided, but also from their creative inspiration.
Andrew Grima trained as an engineer and only entered the jewellery business after the war having served nearly five years with the 7th Indian Division in Burma. In 1946 he joined his future father-in-law’s jewellery business in London, where he astonished everyone with his first improvised collection based on a suitcase full of rough-cut semi-precious stones brought-in one day by a Brazilian dealer – this creative burst took everyone by surprise as he had been working in accounts at the time!
Other new exhibitors include AD Antiques, Jeroen Markies, Galleria del Coronari, Peta Smyth, Jenna Burlingham Fine Art, Philip Mould Gallery Portrait Miniatures, Plus One Gallery, Hampton Antiques, Mark Mitchell, Michael Chipperfield and Japanese Gallery.
Bonne Shopping!
The Antiques Diva
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