Tag: Bali

Bali Antiques Buying Tour (Video)

With its gorgeous beaches, luxury resorts, rice paddies and ancient temples Indonesia has far more to offer than just a destination as a vacation hot spot. Bali is one of the world’s best resources for global sourcing. Their antiques scene – and the abundance of offerings – is reminiscent of the Paris Flea Market but Indonesia offers more than just antiques. After assessing your antiquing and design or fashion sourcing needs our local expert Antiques Diva® shopping guide will custom plan your Bali antiques buying tour – helping to maximize your time and money by translating and negotiating on your behalf, and finally liaising you with an international shipper.

Join Toma Clark Haines, CEO of The Antiques Diva® & Co, with Derrick Ricketts, VP, Dallas Market Center on a Bali Antiques Buying Tour with local expert Antiques Diva Guide Marilyn: 

 

 

Bali is more than a vacation destination. Bali is one of the world’s best resources for global sourcing. Whether you are looking for rustic or folkart furniture… wood and stone carvings… textiles, batiks and ikats… tribal jewelry… architectural salvage… or actually seeking a source to manufacture your own furniture line… Bali has it all!

Our Bali tour crisscrosses Seminyak and Ubud. Bali has countless antiques warehouses where you can find both Balinese and Javanese furniture and architectural salvage. I simply love the colors and carvings of Indonesia!

We have a lot of places to go! Our job is to bring clients to exactly the right places for what they’re looking for! Marilyn knows all the right places, and gets the best prices.

Bali is famous for its textiles. You can even find newly made furniture in Bali. If you want to design your own furniture we can introduce you to artisans and manufacturers for handmade goods.

Bali is also an excellent place to source contemporary art.

After a full day of shopping, we take time to monkey around in Ubud Monkey Forest!

My favorite hotel in Bali is Bambu Indah, John Hardy’s famous eco-lifestyle boutique hotel. Hardy salvaged 11 antique Javanese bridal homes and reconstructed them in Bali. A reknown antiques collector, Hardy’s philosophy is Antiques Are Green. We explore with our client the use of architectural salvage in luxury and eco-design.

On Antiques Diva Tours we always take time to eat! And here eating is a culinary and visual feast.

After lunch we hit the road again. Bali boasts a district of antique shops that can only be compared to the Paris Flea Market! Mile after mile of treasures unfold.

The secret of our tours is we know where to go. We take a peek at one of Donna Karan’s secret sources.
To close the day we are invited for cocktails at the home of local antiques dealer Michael Nalder of LeMari.

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Kop khun kha, 
Toma Clark Haines – The Antiques Diva 

Lemari, Bali: A Visit With Antiques Dealer Michael Nalder

Welcome to Indonesia

Photo Credit Susanna Ollmann, Ollmann Creative 

Do you believe in love at first sight? That might have been how I felt when I met Michael Nalder. He’s suave, debonaire, devastatingly handsome and not only has the most gorgeous antique shop under the sun… he cooks too. Discovering that he had been an Antiques Diva® blog reader for years was almost as much of a delight as it was when Michael invited me for dinner chez him with my colleague Marilyn, who leads our Bali tours, and my friend Derrick Ricketts, VP of Dallas Market Center.

Dinner at Michael Nalder's home in Lemari Bali with Toma Clark Haines, Derrick Ricketts and Diva Guide Marilyn
Toma, Derrick and Marilyn at Michael Nalder’s home in Lemari, Bali

 

Lemari Bali | Derrick Rickets and Toma Clark Haines The Antiques Diva visit Bali Indonesia
Derrick and Toma at the home of antiques dealer Michael Nalder in Bali 

Visiting the home of an antiques dealer is always a treat… most dealers hold their favorite pieces back for themselves. But visiting Michael’s home was visiting his personal oasis. Enclosed behind an unassuming building the house surrounds an inner courtyard open to the elements and the pool inside. An artful mix of pieces from around South East Asia and the world, Michael’s home is reminiscent of his store, Lemari.

 Lemari means cupboard in Bahasa (the Indonesian language) – and opening the doors to Michael’s shop is like opening a cabinet of curiosity, only chic-er, more stylish, and perfect for purchasing some of the most swoon-worthy designs on the planet.

The Antiques Diva Visits Lemari Bali With Antiques Dealer Michael Nalder
Michael Nalder’s home in Bali

Lemari offers the traveler an opportunity to take a piece of Bali home, selling an eclectic array of antique furniture, carvings, artifacts and objets d’art hand selected from the islands of the Indonesian archipelago as well as a variety of Dutch colonial pieces and other inventory collected from the world at large.

Michael Nalder explains, “Traditional Balinese architecture blends influences from other cultures to create something unique and interesting.” From European pieces chosen for their grandeur to cheap and cheerful folk art, the principle for Nalder’s collection remains constant; everything at Lemari must exude that certain uniqueness and beauty that Bali is known for.

The Antiques Diva Visits Lemari Bali
Michael Nalder’s collection in his home in Bali

Originally from New Zealand, Nalder explains, “Living in Bali is so different from waking up in Wellington, I can hardly imagine living anywhere else than Bali.” Hmmm…. though rumor has it, this bad boy has been cheating on Bali with Portugal as of late… Which simply makes me wonder. Will Portugal be getting a new shop called Lemari 2? And better yet, what’s the likelihood I can convince Michael to be our Antiques Diva Guide in Portugal if a move really is on the horizon?

Book A Tour with The Antiques Diva & Co

Book an Indonesia Buying Tour with The Antiques Diva

Until next time,
Toma Clark Haines – The Antiques Diva

Lunch in Bali with Designer John Hardy

A Visit to Bambu Indah in Bali with John Hardy 

Photo credits Alessandro Luppi

Toma Clark Haines The Antiques Diva & Co in Bali with John Hardy
Toma Clark Haines with John Hardy in Bali.

With its gorgeous beaches, luxury resorts, rice paddies and ancient temples Indonesia has far more to offer than just a destination as a vacation hot spot. Bali is one of the world’s best resources for global sourcing. Their antiques scene and the abundance of offerings is reminiscent of the Paris Flea Market – but Indonesia offers more than just antiques. Whether you’re seeking a source for manufacturing your furniture line,  wood and stone carvers, weavers, painters or gold and silversmiths Bali alone has the world’s greatest repository of high-level artisans in the world and at The Antiques Diva® & Co we give you access to the best of them.

Furniture – whether new or old – ranges from rustic and folk art to refined or cutting edge and contemporary in design. Textiles reign with batiks and ikats in heartbreakingly beautiful patterns. Fashion, jewelry and art de la table give island chic a new audience making the tribal mainstream.

On a recent visit to Bali I had lunch at John Hardy’s Bandu Indah and took a private tour of the property with its owner.
Bali has its fair share of expats – one of the most well-known is John Hardy. Canadian-born jewelry designer John Hardy moved to Bali 40 years ago and launched his Asian-inspired designs using traditional handmade jewelry techniques. Having recently sold his eponymously named jewelry line, Hardy now devotes his life to educating others about sustainable living with his Green School. A great place to begin one’s education – while experiencing luxury Balinese style – is at Bambu Indah, Hardy’s radically distinctive eco-lifestyle boutique hotel in Ubud where guests commune with nature in their open format huts.

John Hardy's hotel in Bali photo credit Alessandro Luppi
John Hardy’s hotel Bambu Indah in Bali is built from antique Javanese bridal homes.

Hardy – a huge proponent of using architectural salvage in his designs – transplanted a series of 19th C teak Javanese bridal homes to Bali and then restored and decorated them offering his guests a once in a lifetime experience.

“Our charming Javanese teak wood houses are historic traditional homes built by native Indonesians over 100 years ago. Each served as bridal houses to a Javanese nobleman whose duty it was to provide a home for his new bride. These antique homes were hand picked by John Hardy before being carefully dismantled, relocated to Bambu Indah, lovingly restored and made available to you.”

~ Bandu Indah

Local artifacts at John Hardy's hotel in Bali photo credit Alessandro Luppi
Local artifacts at John Hardy’s hotel in Bali.

The interior design ranges from rustic to chic, featuring décor from Hardy’s personal travels such as Moroccan rugs, Burmese lacquerware and Ethiopian woodwork.

If you’re visiting Bali, I strongly recommend you include Bambu Indah on your itinerary. My lunch with John Hardy was definitely a highlight of my last trip to Bali!

Book A Tour with The Antiques Diva & Co

Book an Antiques Diva Tour to Bali

Indonesia Antiques Tours

After assessing your antique, design or fashion sourcing needs, The Antiques Diva & Co will custom plan your private Indonesia antiques tours and buying trip. We can combine your Indonesia antiques tour with other Asian country itineraries to create antiques buying and design inspiration tours to meet our all your sourcing needs. Our local expert Indonesia Diva Guide negotiates on your behalf as we have relationships with vendors, getting you the best deals possible. We also liaise you with a preferred shipper to get your purchases home.

Selamat tinggal, 

Toma Clark Haines, The Antiques Diva 

Oasis Oamaru in New Zealand

Oasis Oamaru in New ZealandWhile I was recently in Bali preparing for our upcoming Indonesian Antiques Tours, the very stylish Michael Nalder invited me over to his tropical oasis – his home – for a fabulous dinner and cocktails. While sipping champagne in this exotic locale, I had the opportunity to meet Greg Waite, owner of Oasis Oamaru, an antique store in New Zealand. We became fast friends, which seems to happen often in the international antiques community. Greg and I discussed his shop in New Zealand as well as life in general in his beautiful country. It’s safe to say that my desperate desire to travel there has only been enhanced since meeting Greg!

While we’ll be featuring Michael’s store in the coming months, as it happens to be one of my favorite sources in all of Bali, I wanted to give you a sneak peek at one of our new Antiques Diva friends in New Zealand. It never ceases to amaze me how small the world is when you’re constantly traveling. Who knows, perhaps The Antiques Diva & Co will be expanding to New Zealand next?! For now, here is a look at our friends from Oasis Oamaru.

Oasis Oamaru in New Zealand

Oasis Oamaru in New Zealand

Oasis Oamaru in New ZealandOasis Oamaru is located in the port warehouse area of Oamaru, North Otago in a circa 1876 grain store, which has New Zealand Historic Places Trust status. The store has an Asian focus when it comes to art and antiques. And this makes sense, after all, as Asia is where I met Greg! Each piece is hand selected and imported mostly from Indonesia and China. For an international mix, Oasis also sources pieces at local markets in New Zealand including vintage photography, reference books on all subjects New Zealand, and British studio ceramics. They also have a comprehensive selection of books on art and architecture.Oasis Oamaru in New ZealandIf you find yourself in New Zealand, stop by Oasis and tell him The Antiques Diva sent you!

Cheers,

Toma Clark Haines, The Antiques Diva®