Antonia Graham
A textile and antiques dealer, enjoy an excerpt from Selvedge issue 66: India to learn more about Antonia Graham.
The parallels are not perfectly aligned but something about Antonia Graham brings to mind a Mary Wesley novel. It could be her London home which is filled to the ceiling with Indian textiles, assorted antiques and her rather dashing red-headed lodger who lives on the top floor. More likely it’s her air of independence and disregard for convention. A retail pioneer and consummate self-starter, now 73 Antonia travels more than ever, “There’s lots of travel in our family,” (ethnographic textile expert Joss Graham is her brother) and she has no intention of slowing down.
A trip to Vietnam is planned for the next few weeks and though it gave her a moment’s pause – “It’s four years since I last went to Vietnam and I did wonder if I still could,” – she said to herself “I can go because I have friends there.” Even if she didn’t, Antonia would make some: “I like travelling by myself,” she declares, “you meet people.”
The journey Antonia makes most frequently is to Goa where 12 years ago she bought a dilapidated house with her son Jamie. It was the resolution of a long held, if slightly vague, plan. “I always thought I’d end up in Goa,” offers Antonia as the basis for the decision. “It’s a laid back, gentle place – someone said there is ‘a softness to life’ here.” Dreamy as that sounds, making it a reality necessitated overcoming a few real life obstacles. “In India you don’t have estate agents, you have ‘finders’. I spotted the house while visiting a friend. It hadn’t been lived in for 10 years and had these wonderful grey-green shutters. Our finder located the owner in Mumbai. We all got on really well but it took time – at one point all the paperwork was lost in a monsoon.
Once a deal was signed, the house, which Antonia describes as “neither the biggest nor the most beautiful, in the area” gradually became home. A local architect made a central courtyard, creating light and space. Once structural work was completed Antonia and Jamie made short work of decorating – filling the house with a growing collection of kantha quilts, colourful cushions and carved furniture. “I buy lots,” she confesses. “And when I pick up things I don’t always remember the colour scheme of each room, which can lead to a wholesale reshuffle. I’ve numbered the quilts to try and help the housekeeper remember which rooms to put them in.” Antonia obviously has a clear idea of how things should look. You’d expect nothing less from a woman who helped create the whole notion of a lifestyle brand.
Her earliest venture ‘Stock’ launched in the early 70s. “It was in Holborn, round the corner from Central St Martins. Students would come and browse because we played good music,” she recalls. The shop itself was the culmination of luck, circumstance and creative thinking. Having left school at 15 and attended finishing school in Switzerland, Antonia found herself in London with no intention of working nine to five.
She took a smattering of film extra work and managed her brother’s band. But it was Aunt Barbara’s friendship with Elizabeth Davies that really got the ball rolling. “I worked for Elizabeth writing letters in French (finishing school had its uses). I was with her for three years and rapidly got promoted due to changes in the company. I began sourcing products we take for granted today but were not available in England at the time – cast-iron frying pans, white porcelain ware, and French knives. Suddenly I was putting together costings, buying stock – now I always say if you want to learn something do it for someone else for a few years.”
Stock was another learning experience: albeit one that couldn’t weather a new baby, Edward Heath’s three-day week or the staff‘s ‘relaxed’ attitude to stock control. “Things disappeared on an industrial scale, it should have been a lesson in human nature but I still prefer to trust people – at the time I couldn’t really cope.” But the energy spent on Stock wasn’t wasted, as it became the impetus for the creation of Graham & Green. The first shop opened in Notting Hill in 1974 and they are still going strong today with two shops, four catalogues a year and an online store.
Antonia’s son Jamie now runs the brand and the house in Goa often provides a backdrop for G&G shoots. She loves the direction the company is moving in, insisting with pride that her son is “more design educated, a step ahead of me but on the same page”. And it gives Antonia more time to sit back and watch the world go by. In Goa that can be quite a parade. “I sat outside once and watched motorbikes roar followed by a sedate cow. After him a crowd of nuns in white dresses passed by singing hymns and finally a group of giggling schoolchildren in uniform. Goa offers a feast of textiles and never a dull moment.” I don’t believe Antonia sat down for long – no doubt she persuaded their housekeeper to give her a lift to the market on the back of the scooter and came back with some more quilts.
Text by Beth Smith
Find out more and follow Antonia Graham:
@antoniagrahamlondon