Tuesday, June 18, 2013
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Excerpt from Retail Therapy: Daytripping The Junction in the National Post
Walking past Eclectic Revival, it’s the modern industrial chandelier in the window that beckons. Turns out owner Peter Breese made it himself, out of vintage copper tubing and reproduction Edison bulbs ($650). He’s had the shop for seven years (he was previously a lamp wholesaler) and can recite the provenance and historic significance of each and every lamp, shade and chandelier he’s restored and retrofit in the shop — from the over-the-top gaslight acanthus scrolls to a pair of signed Quezal art glass shades ($1500). Breese patiently tells me that the colourful parakeet painted on bulbous amber glass that I’m cooing over is a 1930s knockoff of a pricey Handel reverse-painted ‘bird in the cage’ specimen. His prices are fair, so a pristine 1920s hand-painted Carnival glass chandelier ($2,750) or batwing-style hammered bronze Art Deco slipshade chandelier ($750) might be better value than its Made in China counterpart. Breese also has a few early Victorian gems -- one ornately carved six-arm chandelier’s twin apparently resides in the Smithsonian, and he has a few mid-century showpieces as well. One Mad Men-era pendant lamp is a plasticky spaghetti of a wasp’s nest, in bright green. But I take a cue from the vintage red glass Exit sign ($325) and leave, dashing across the street to Crema for an espresso before I do any serious bank account damage.