I was lucky to meet Bryony Thomasson early in my time as a French junk and brocante dealer.
She was a highly intelligent, well educated lady who left a business career as recruiting officer in the electrical industry, to become the best known dealer in artefacts, folk art and rustic items from La France Profonde. She was used by many major film wardrobe directors during the time of
Fleurette and other productions showing the true poverty and tragic stories of the
paysans. She lived in a small terrace house in Fulham and her living area was an incredible showcase of everything that she collected and loved from the farms and small workshops in France.There was a cascade of string and ropes, nets for chickens, rabbits, hammocks for sick horses, halters, girth webbing, whips and blinkers - piles of the roughest sheets, sacks, seed bags and curls of horsehair for filling mattresses, hanks of coarse thread for weavers, as well as her own special collections, (not for sale )- tiny buttons from uniforms, silk and cotton f
oulards (neckerchiefs worn inside the shirt collar) and then the rows of all the old clothes, especially
men's which are always so hard to find; berets,
les bleues working trousers, jackets and her beloved smocks in polished cotton worn by the
maraicheurs (small market garden dealers)to go to market and to wear at Mass and also the quarterly hiring fairs. She was so generous with her experience and deep knowledge and much loved and respected by her French suppliers. She drove a tall red van with a stove, some bedding and a bicycle at the ready. She was first at every fair on her bike wheeling down the aisles and there would be piles awaiting her arrival. Her collections of vintage clothing inspired several top couturiers and her strong language and stories of intrepid travels endeared her to many. Her constant companion was the
maraicheur Jean- seen above.
I have always been interested in, and attracted to, the bold patterns of painted walls in Elizabethan houses ever since I saw some at Queens Hoo, nr. Tewin, Herts, which was owned by an aunt. So when I saw an article and photos about a young artist, Melissa White, who was painting wall hangings and plaster decorations, I contacted her, hoping that my old handspun, hand-woven linen might be useful in re-creating ancient decorations. She was, by chance, coming this way on a course run by a good friend of mine, Victor Chinnery, who is a leading expert on Tudor furnishings and buildings, so it all came together and she spent a night here and went on to the Merchants House in Marlborough with its fabulous painted 'Rainbow' room, brilliant stripes all round and a wonderful staircase with 'shadow' bannisters opposite the real ones, in a building open to the public. They went on to Exeter where the Museum there has rescued a complete English pannelled room from the Hearst archives/stores in USA, never unpacked (!), set it all up in the Exeter Museum, and it turns out that it had all been taken from a building a few streets away - what a coincidence! She did some work there later. Now Melissa has started designing 'Elizabethan' cushions on hemp, linen and vintage velvet remnants and you can see her work on line.. She can be contacted at http://www.fairlyte.co.uk/ for info. and commissions. If you have any really nice vintage velvet, I will pass on messages for her.
