Bringing old treasures into the modern world

Owner François Bardonnet brings a fresh outlook to Antiques Period (top), the new store he has just opened on Beacon Hill.

French antiques dealer François Bardonnet moved to Boston recently to attempt something bold and brazen, something few in his line of work would dare to do: Open a new antiques shop at a time when the popularity of antiques is in decline.

Seemingly unperturbed, he has filled his charming Beacon Hill establishment with treasures he's amassed over time - a pair of Louis XVl bergères, neoclassical commodes, and gilt wood fauteuils.

But when he shows a visitor the shop, does he emphasize the architectural motifs, the Greek molded cornices, the Aubusson tapestry?

Mais non! (Well, a little bit.) He talks about how modern the antiques are, how well they hold up to rambunctious children, how the simple, straight lines on some pieces are just crying out for trendy upholstery.

"I've seen 16th-century chairs with cubist fabric on it, and it looks incredibly beautiful," says Bardonnet, whose shop, Antiques Period, opened last month on River Street. "If you want it with a pink crocodile, I am fine with it.

I'm extremely convinced that antique furniture can exist in a modern world in many, many ways. You can't be old-fashioned about this anymore."

Bardonnet's attitude reflects a shift in the way antiques are being viewed by a new generation of homeowners and designers, a population that would much rather make their purchases by the click of a mouse than by browsing in quaint little antiques shops, who are not purists about mixing periods or styles or understanding provenance. (Witness one of the most celebrated chairs in the design world these days, the "Louis Ghost Armchair" that Philippe Starck designed for Kartell. It's a polycarbonate interpretation of a Louis XVl armchair.)

Typical of this cohort are designers such as Andrew Terrat and Dee Elms of Boston's Terrat Elms Interior Design. "We don't study antiques and we don't care if what we use is necessarily the most important of its type," says Terrat. "We definitely have a more modern vibe to what we do.

But if it has great lines and it will work in the space, we'll go with it."

Among the things they've gone with lately: An Italianate lamp base paired with a new lamp shade found at Pottery Barn. An embellished gilt ornament from a Charles Street antiques shop, displayed with a $24.99 Ikea wall mirror. A pair of late 19th-century French armchairs reupholstered in mod chartreuse '60s flowered linen.

"Our pattern gives it a run for its money," says Terrat.

Only a few years ago, the notion of giving finely wrought antiques a run for their money would have ruffled a lot of traditionalists' feathers. "It would have been frowned upon, and considered inappropriate," says designer Jim Gauthier of Gauthier-Stacy, Inc. in Boston.

This is especially true in conservative Boston, historically one of the great antiques centers of America. But the city's antiques community has a shrinking constituency and influence these days. "Your friendly corner antique shop ... is dying a slow and grizzled death," says Stuart Whitehurst, vice president of Skinner, Inc., the Boston-based auction house.

There are a lot of reasons for the decline. Modern furniture is the Big Thing right now in home design. Heirloom furniture doesn't resonate with a younger generation inclined to change their decor with the same frequency and abandon as their wardrobes.

"The young people aren't interested in the stuff," says Bert Rosengarten of Cambridge Street Antiques in Cambridge, a third-generation antiques dealer who has been in business for 43 years and is closing his 100-dealer group shop this year. "They were raised with computers, so they want to buy technology. They buy iPods and big TVs and BMWs."

"It's a big cultural shift," says Boston designer Michael Carter of Carter & Co. Working people are too busy to "go on leisurely weekend walks and hit a few antiques shops. Faxes and e-mails have consumed us.

This has literally decimated the antiques industry across the country."

So rather than go down without a fight, many antiques dealers and designers are looking for effective ways to take this cultural shift into account.

They're emphasizing that antiques can co-exist harmoniously with modern furniture. "We love to mix cleaner more contemporary pieces with antiques," Gauthier says. "We try to steer our clientele in their mid-30s and early 40s ... who might have a family heirloom to put a much fresher, more contemporary fabric on it, as opposed to your traditional damask or needelepointed chair."

They're marketing on the Internet to appeal to the time-crunched. A popular source is the website 1stdibs.com ("View over 500 chandeliers in 3 minutes," its magazine ad says.) The website not only links customers to antiques from leading dealers around the world but suggests ways to incorporate them into modern settings. "We display antique pieces next to more modern ones, so people get the idea of how to do this," says the website's founder, Michael Bruno.

In Bardonnet's case, he's taking a chance and opening a new shop in Beacon Hill, once the heart and soul of the city's antiques industry. "I was aware that I was going into a market that is maybe not the most frantic," he says. "But it's a risk I am willing to take. From a business perspective, I thought it could make sense with the help of things like the Internet and 1stdibs," says Bardonnet, who lost no time uploading images of his inventory onto his store's website.

Bardonnet, 37, is no stranger to the business world. He was raised in Paris by parents who collected antiques, spending weekends at countryside flea markets and Left Bank antiques shops. "It is in the blood," he says, in French-accented English. Thinking he wanted to be a lawyer, he attended Columbia University law school in New York and spent seven years at a prominent Manhattan corporate law firm. ("I was the nice kind, not a litigator," he laughs.) But he was never passionate about it. "It was very stressful, extremely complex, and not something I could envision myself doing until my late 60s or early 70s," he says. "I asked myself what I did want to do, and the obvious answer was antiques."

Two years ago he moved to Boston "because of what they call, in law firms, personal reasons." He opened his antiques shop in a small, sun-filled Beacon Hill space that reminds him of Old World shops, with all their splendors and miseries, he says. He's filled it with mostly late 18th-century and early 19th-century French and English neoclassical furniture and accessories, as well as 18th-century Old Masters drawings - which, he is quick to point out, look very nice with modern furniture.

Bardonnet may be new to Boston, but he's à la page, he says: up to date.

He understands that younger Americans are fickle about furniture, that "they don't hold on to things as much as we do in Europe." So he speaks to them in their language. "It's good for people not to cling to the past too much, to be weighed down by things," he says. "One of the great things about antiques is they are resellable," he says. "And very often you are able to make money."

Bardonnet knows Americans are more casual than they used to be, that their kids may have the run of the place at home. He slams his fist on a $12,5000 George lll mahogany breakfront. "It's not fragile," he says, with young parents obviously in mind. "What could happen to it? Nothing!"

He allows that his pieces "are a little more expensive than - what's that Northern European place? Ikea?" he says. "But in a world of Gap and Starbucks, I think people appreciate it."

c.2006 The Boston Globe